Disclaimer: If I owned them, they would be having a much more
interesting holiday.

~ ~ ~

Lex looked down at the phone and frowned. He'd been looking forward to
going to Zermatt with Bruce since last year. It was a tradition.

A tradition that had started in boarding school when Bruce found out
that Lex was going to spend the holidays at school. The Luthors had
never been very big on the holidays. There was the traditional
LuthorCorp Christmas party, where he vainly hid in the coat closet.
There was the perfunctory holiday dinner where, even as a child, he
could feel the tension radiating in the air. After his mother died,
even the little celebrating they did had vanished. So completely, in
fact, that his father wasn't even going to come home from a business
trip for the holiday.

Bruce had encouraged, cajoled, and finally begged Lex to join Alfred
and him that year, and they had spent every Christmas together since.
These days, though, the two of them would meet up in Gotham, fly out
to Milan, stop a day in the city, and then helicopter out to Zermatt,
spending the holidays skiing, relaxing, and having fun.

It was a good tradition -- at least until today. Until he found out
how a normal family celebrated the holidays.

Clark had bounded into his office, bubbling over with energy and
excitement, and declared that they had to go for a walk -- that it
was too good a day to be cooped up in a stuffy house. He had relented
without a thought and trudged out into the snow, barely remembering
to throw on a jacket.

Out and around the house they went, walking slowly in silence, basking
in the warmth of the winter sun. As they headed into the garden, it
was as if a dam broke inside Clark, and he began to talk excitedly
about the upcoming holidays.

Lex had heard about Christmas pageants, sleigh rides, and midnight
masses before, but he'd never been convinced that people did those
things. And even if they did, he never thought that he would ever be
friends with anyone that actually enjoyed them.

Clark's enthusiasm for these...traditions had bubbled up and over onto
him. As he had listened to Clark, he began to imagine himself going to
a Christmas pageant. He could even picture himself going on a sleigh
ride and going to midnight mass -- as long as he went with Clark. But
those were things one did with one's family or a girlfriend, not with
a fifteen-year-old boy. Not unless you wanted to raise unwanted
speculation, and that was the last thing he needed right now.

Lex sighed. For the first time since childhood, he wanted to celebrate
the holidays in a more traditional manner. But he couldn't -- at least,
not with the person that he most wanted to.

Lex picked up the phone and punched in one of the few numbers that he
had memorized. "This is Bruce Wayne's cell phone. Leave a message and
someone will return your call."

For a moment, he thought he'd go through with it. "Bruce, it's Lex.
I'm just calling...to say that I won't be making it this Christmas. I have...other plans." Lex twisted the phone cord around his finger.
Plans that included sleigh rides, warm blankets and Clark Kent. "Sorry
about the short notice but something...came out of nowhere. I'll make
it up to you after New Years. Just make sure that you have a good
time." Lex paused. "Don't forget to wish Alfred Merry Christmas for
me." He hung up the phone and swiveled in his chair to look out at
the garden. Snow had begun to fall and cover the grounds where they
had walked, but if he looked hard enough, he could make out the faint footprints in the snow.