Title: The Treed Pants
Author: Glamourcat, Glamourcat@lycos.com
Date: 2/1/02
Author's Notes: Jodi is my own original character, Emma is based off my real life cat (and by the way Meezer is a breed nickname for Siamese - which Emma is), Lucien LaCriox and Nicholas Knight are from Forever Knight, and everything else is from Smallville.
A Dragon and A Meezer had been open since ten that morning with little to no customers. It didn't concern Jodi Ramona LaCriox who knew that her target age group – thirteen through twenty something – wouldn't be able to visit the shop until after school or work. Her pottery, sculpture, and jewelry shop had become a popular place for the high school and community college kids to visit after classes got out for the day.
She wasn't surprised to see her three best customers walk in at around three o'clock, a half hour after the high school let out for the day. It was a Friday. That meant they'd hang at the shop late or until their parents came looking for them.
"Hi Jodi!"
"Hey, Jo."
"Afternoon Jodi!"
The first greeting came from Chloe, the short blond editor of the school newspaper. The second from the toweringly tall Clark - no one else could get away with calling her Jo except the young man Jodi thought of as a kid brother. The last salutation came from Lana, the local socialite and the object of Clark's affection, despite Chloe's jealousy.
Jodi looked up from her latest ceramic design as they filed in and took up their usual spots. She'd started keeping extra chairs in the place for her three favorite regulars. Laying aside the newly fired bisque vase she'd been painting glaze onto, she returned their salutations.
"Hey all. How was school today?"
Jodi wasn't much older than them, only twenty-four to their sixteen and seventeen years but she always felt compelled to make some show of adulthood.
"The new English Lit teacher is insane," Lana said, dropping her bag next to her chair. She always crashed in the second-hand pink, upholstered easy chair Jodi had found left in the attic from the previous owner of the shop.
"Yeah, you should see the paper he assigned on William Blake," Clark added. "You'd think he was Blake reincarnated or something."
Jodi chuckled, "I had a Prof. like that in college. Let me know if you need any help."
"Thanks," the two chorused.
"So anything else new in the gossip mill?" Jodi asked, retying her ponytail and picking up the vase again to finish her design.
"Not unless you're talking about Clark, the amazing two left-footed man," Chloe said, mischief in her voice.
"Chloe, come on," Clark pleaded.
"Sounds like you're entering dangerous territory, Chloe. Should you be telling me this?" Jodi smiled at them.
"No, she shouldn't. Not if she values her life." Clark mock-threatened.
"Well, I wasn't there, but Pete was and he told me everything." Chloe told her story, despite the thin ice she walked on. "Pete said that in gym today they were working on field and track, and someone managed to so badly misjudge the distance of the hurdles that he not only tripped over the first one, but fell headlong into the next five."
"Hey. That was not my fault. They were spaced wrong," Clark protested.
"If it had happened to anyone else, Clark, I'd buy that-but it didn't. It happened to the King of Klutz - you." Chloe laughed.
While Clark glowered, Lana leapt to his defense. "Hey, it's not like we all haven't done stupid things before. I remember one time during a performance in cheerleading I lost track of where we were during a routine and wound up spinning when I should have dipped and barreled right into three other girls. I ruined the show."
"And I've done some pretty stupid things too," Jodi admitted. "See that dragon over there? The one my Uncle Nick gave me?"
"You mean the priceless, rare Chinese antique?" Clark said a trifle mockingly. The piece was the pride of Jodi's collection and she bragged about it often.
"Yes, well, I'm not getting into details-but it used to have a twin."
"OUCH!" the three chorused. They knew the statue was valuable enough that Lex once tried to buy it from her. His price tag had been over a quarter of a million.
"Tell me about it." Jodi grinned ruefully. "I think Uncle Nick gave the remaining one to me just so he wouldn't have to look at it and be reminded."
"Well, fess up Chloe," Jodi said, switching attention to the teen. "Your turn. What was one of your most embarrassing moments?"
"Mine?" Chloe was brought up short.
"Well if you can't think of one, I most certainly can." Clark grinned devilishly, his chance at payback arriving.
"Clark, you wouldn't…"
"I seem to remember this funny little incident when our dear little Chloe had this crush on this kid in the senior class," Clark said, starting his tale. "And in her haste to catch up with him as he was walking down the hall, she tripped, fell, and skidded ass backwards until she landed right in front of him. Oh, and did I mention that her skirt had ridden up so she was flashing him at the time? Way to get a guy's attention!"
"What is?" A new voice joined their conversation.
The four looked towards the door of the A Dragon. Lex Luthor, Jodi's former college boyfriend and current "we're just friends, really" walked in.
"Hey Lex. What's up?" Clark said. Lex shared the same age difference between Clark and as Jodi did, but still considered the black-haired teenager a good friend.
"Not much. I came in on the tail end of that sentence," Lex said, taking the barstool next to Jodi's behind the counter. "So what's a way to get a guy's attention?"
"Nothing important, Lex," Jodi said, hastily covering before Clark could retell Chloe's embarrassing story. "We've been trading accounts of some of our most humiliating moments."
"Sounds like I missed some good stories," Lex said.
"So what's yours?" Lana asked, leaning forward eagerly.
"What's what?" Lex asked, pretending not to understand.
"What's your most embarrassing moment?" Lana expanded her question. "Surely the great Lex Luthor must have done something stupid when he was our age."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Lana, but I have very selective amnesia about my teenaged years. I am afraid I don't remember anything about them right now," Lex tried to get out of the spotlight. Jodi wasn't having any of it.
"Oh really," the ceramist said sarcastically. "That's funny 'cause I seem to remember this one little incident when you were wearing those purple silk boxers with the little…"
Lex put his hand over Jodi's mouth, muffling her voice as the three teens started cracking up.
"OW!" Lex swore and pulled his hand away. "Damnit! You bit me."
"You put your hand where I could," Jodi said, mater of factly.
"I'm not sure that would have been a story my parents would have approved of anyway," Clark said, still smiling from behind his hand.
"Actually, it was quite innocent however mortifying Lex finds it," Jodi said, setting down her paintbrush and vase again. "Truthfully, it's the story of how we met."
"Oh tell us that!" Lana exclaimed.
"Yeah, that sounds interesting," Chloe agreed, and Clark echoed her statement.
"You've been outvoted, dear." Jodi turned to Lex on her left, and patted him gently on his knee in false sympathy.
"I'm doomed." Lex shook his head, and half chuckled.
"Well, it all started when my roommates found out I was turning twenty. Hmm…maybe I should go back a little bit further than that." Jodi thought about for a moment and then continued, "I never lived on campus during college. I rented a four bedroom house with two other girls - Tracey and Marissa. I leased two of the bedrooms, one for myself that had a full bath on it and one as a studio space, so I was putting in the higher amount of rent. Tracey and Marissa paid most of the basic bills, electric, and the like. Marissa was very studious and almost never home since she was always at the library. Tracey was a certified sorority party animal. Honestly I'm not sure she went to classes."
"When I turned twenty, Tracey decided to throw me a party. You know, just a little get together. One or two friends of hers, a few of mine from the art department…problem with that is they invited one or two of their friends who invited some of theirs…"
"I think we see where this is going," Clark said, snorting. "Let me guess, by the end of the night, you didn't even know any of the people there."
"Bingo!" Jodi said. "I still don't know why the cops didn't break up my birthday bash… though looking back I have my suspicions."
She cast a glance at Lex who had on his best, "Who me?" look.
"At any rate, I think it was about three am before I could get anyone to leave, and at four AM, when the last guest left, I took stock of the house. The place was trashed and both my roommates weren't home. So I just went to my room and crashed. I slept until about noon and got up, feeling an urge for some hot water to steam away my hangover."
"There was a surprise waiting for me in the bathtub."
The three teens looked at Lex, having a hard time picturing the normally dignified businessman in a stranger's bathtub.
"At first I didn't even notice him there-I was practically sleepwalking. I turned on the shower and the water…"
"And woke me up. I remember there being an awful lot of screaming after that," Lex supplied. "The shock of the water jolted me straight up! We stood there, shrieking at each other for like five minutes or something."
When the snickers from the peanut gallery calmed down, Jodi took up the thread again.
"The worst thing is, I'd left the water running during this and he was drenched. Screaming when you're hung-over isn't a good idea, by the way. Loud noises in general aren't. We both stopped because we were giving ourselves colossal headaches. I finally turned off the water and faced him, realizing he wasn't wearing any pants-just the aforementioned boxers and an unbuttoned shirt."
"As I recall, you weren't exactly the height of fashion yourself in that battered, old bathrobe," Lex interjected.
"Hush, I'm telling a story," Jodi admonished. "Our first conversation wasn't exactly what you'd call elegant."
"Who the hell are you?" the brown haired woman shouted.
"Who the hell are you?" the bald, pantless young man shouted back.
"I asked you first! And you're in MY tub!" she accused.
"Ow… okay, okay, just don't shout again," he said, rubbing his forehead in pain.
"You shouted too!"
"I'm Lex. I was at a party…" He trailed off not really remembering what brought him to this general state of undress.
"I'm Jodi. It was my birthday party you were at," she answered. "Damnit, I thought I'd gotten all the guests out - never occurred to me to check here."
"Never occurred to me I'd wake up here," Lex said, stepping out of the tub. Jodi backed away to give him room.
"Do you have a towel or something?" he asked.
"Sure." Jodi opened the linen closet door, pulled out a beach towel, and tossed it at him.
His reflexes being just a touch off, he not only didn't catch the towel, he was smacked in the face by it.
"Why don't you come downstairs when you've cleaned yourself up?" Jodi suggested.
"Yeah, sure. Um…do you know where my pants are?"
"Lex, I didn't even know where you were up until five minutes ago. I don't think I'm going to know where your pants are." Jodi snorted. "I'll be in the kitchen. Coffee or tea?"
"What's got more caffeine?"
"Gotcha."
She left the bathroom and went downstairs.
When Lex came downstairs with the beach towel now modestly wrapped around his waist and his shirt buttoned though soggy, he found Jodi starting the coffee maker. Just for good measure, she pulled a teakettle out of the cabinet.
"Hey. Thanks for the towel," Lex said, sitting down at one of the barstools at the breakfast counter. "You're being pretty cool about this. I would normally expect someone to completely freak out or call the cops or something like that."
She snorted. "I've had stranger things in my house before - hell, I grew up with stranger things in my house. This was nothing compared to one of my Aunt Janette's parties."
"I decided to make tea and coffee and let you decide how much caffeine you need to infuse yourself with. I'm a tea girl myself." She nodded towards his shirt. "You want me to toss that in the dryer for you?"
"Ah, no thanks. I've lost enough clothing so far today."
"Point." Jodi walked over to the kitchen sink with the kettle, hung it on the faucet, turned on the water, and stared out the window while it filled.
Lex saw her stare idly and then change posture as if she was looking intently at something.
"Um Lex?"
"Yeah?"
"Are those yours?"
Lex got up and walked over to stand behind her, looking out the window. At first he didn't see anything besides the deck out back and a tree beyond that in the yard. Then he looked up. And yes, sure enough, about ten feet from the top of that massive tree were Lex's pants.
Jodi turned off the faucet and moved past Lex to the sliding doors to the right of the kitchen sink. She walked out onto the deck, Lex following her.
They stood staring at the treed pants.
"So how the hell are we going to get those down?" Jodi asked.
"Damned if I know," Lex said. "How the hell did they get up there?"
"Damned if I know," Jodi answered.
"Wicked party Jodi!" another voice called from the deck of the house next door.
Jodi looked over toward her neighbour.
"Oh, hey Rich. Thanks."
"So what's with the fruit in the towel? Your standards go down?"
Disgusted with the pig she lived next too, Jodi turned back to the tree and the problem of the pants.
"No Rich, if my standards had gone down I would have slept with you."
"Fuck you too," Rich didn't seem happy about her answer and went back inside his place.
"My apologies. He's not high on the food chain."
"I could tell," Lex said, not minding in the slightest.
"So how the hell are we going to get those down?" Lex asked.
"I dunno. Call the fire department? I mean, it's not exactly a kitten in a tree but..." Jodi finally started to crack up at the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"Oh go ahead and laugh. It's not your clothing that's up there!" Lex said, only mildly annoyed. "Just let me borrow a long coat or something to drive home in. The tree can keep the pants."
"He's lucky I had a long coat to lend him," Jodi said as everyone laughed at the conclusion of the story. "Which reminds me-you never gave that back!"
"I meant to. I kept dropping by your place to return it, only to realize I'd forgotten the thing."
"Uh-huh," Jodi said trying not laugh again. "And that's the story of how we met. Embarrassing enough for you, gang?"
"Plenty," said Chloe who was grinning from ear to ear. "Could I run that story in the school paper?"
"I'll sue," Lex threatened.
"Don't worry, Lex. Your secret's safe with us," Lana assured him, trying not to snicker.
"So whatever happened to those pants?" Clark asked.
"They stayed there through the rest of my college career," Jodi said. "As far as I know, those pants are still stuck up that tree."
"You're all sworn to secrecy," Lex told them, making his face as serious as he could. "You're now members of the Royal University Order of the Treed Pants."
That set the high schoolers and Jodi off into another gale of laughter.
The town clock rang for the hour. Lana looked at her watch and bit off a curse.
"Gotta go, Nell will freak if I don't get home to muck out the stalls on time," Lana said, picking up her bag.
"I'll give you a ride home," Chloe offered, slinging her own backpack over her shoulder. "Come on, Clark, you're on the way."
"Right. See you Jo." He nodded to Jodi and then to Lex. "Brother of the Order of Treed Pants."
That set off another roar of laughter on the way out of A Dragon and A Meezer. Lex followed them to the door, shutting it, locking it, and flipping the open sign over to read closed.
"What did you do that for? I don't close 'til six," Jodi said.
"You just had to tell them that story didn't you?" Lex said, sitting down next to her, pulling his perch closer to her. "Clark is never going to let me live that down."
"You could use a good dose of humility. Besides, it was funny," Jodi undid her ponytail now that she wasn't painting anymore. Shaking out her curly mane, she looked at Lex with a coy smile. "In addition, you could have shut me up."
"You BIT me when I tried that," Lex protested.
"There are other ways of shutting me up besides that," she teased.
"True, but none appropriate in front of our young friends."
"You make us sound a thousand years old."
"Jodi?"
"Yeah?"
"Shut-up." Lex leaned forward and kissed her.
She lingered over the kiss before pulling back.
"So tell me, Brother of the Order of Treed Pants, do you still have those cute, little, purple silk boxers with the little hearts on them?"
"Ha! You'll have to find out for yourself." Lex gave her another quick kiss on the lips, hopped off his seat and pulled her by the hand up the back stairs of the shop into her apartment above.