Title: New Year's Day - Another "Honesty" Prequel
Author: PepperjackCandy
Series: Prequel to the "Honesty" series, sequel to Christmas - An "Honesty" Prequel
Archive : Smallville Slash Archive, my writing at fanfiction.net
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Category: Romance
Spoilers for: Moulin Rouge, my own Honesty series
Disclaimer: I own nothing Smallville-related, or related in any other way to Clark Kent, Superman or any of the various creations of the wonderful folks at DC Comics.
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.
A/N: For those who've caught up on Honesty, remember, this is two months prior to Lex's kidnapping Clark in Chapter 1. This will be important to remember later.
WARNING: If you haven't seen "Moulin Rouge" yet, go out and rent it, then come back and read this. Unless you want the whole darned thing spoiled for you.
=============
At 12:03 a.m., Lex's cell phone rang. He answered it without glancing at the caller ID. "Lex Luthor."
It was Clark. "Hey, Lex. I just wanted to call and tell you that it's January and I still want to kiss you."
Warmth spread through his stomach and into his groin at these words. He hurried from the room and into the cloak room, where he'd spent so many Christmases. If his father caught him in there, he'd assume that Lex was regressing. When he was finally alone, he responded. "Clark! I thought you understood that I meant a little *farther* into January."
He could almost hear Clark shrugging. "You didn't say when in January. And in further news, I'm sixteen now."
"What? When did that happen?"
"Oh, about," Clark paused, "four minutes ago."
"It's your birthday?" Lex wondered how in all of his research, he'd missed something as obvious as Clark having a New Year's Day birthday.
"Well, my folks considered a lot of dates - February second, April first . . . finally they decided on January first. You know, new beginnings, all that."
"Very fitting." Lex said candidly. "You've been a source of new beginnings to everyone whose lives you've touched."
"Everyone?"
"Yes. Everyone."
"I wanted to call you at midnight, but, you know, I had to spend the first minutes of the new year with my folks."
"Well, there are still two to go."
"Huh?"
Lex laughed. "Mountain and Pacific time. In," he glanced at his watch, "fifty-four and one hour and fifty-four minutes from now. And that's not counting Alaska, or Hawaii, or . . ."
"All right. All right." Clark interrupted, laughing. "I'll call you back in fifty-four minutes, then."
"Fifty-three."
Clark sighed heavily. "All right. Let's synchronize our watches. I have 12:07."
"12:08, and it's synched with the Naval Observatory's atomic clock."
"All right. I now have," a brief pause while Clark set his watch, "12:09."
"Close enough."
"Good. I'll call you back in fifty-one minutes."
Lex laughed warmly. "I'll look forward to it."
Lex exited the coat room, tucking his cell phone back into his pocket and thanking whatever impulse had led him to get a cell phone local to Smallville. Clark could call him and talk all night without his parents being any the wiser. A phone call to Metropolis, on the other hand . . .
Lionel joined his son in the foyer. "There you are, Lex."
"I just had to . . . take care of some personal business."
"Well, I have another potential client that I want to introduce you to."
Trying to reign in his impulse to sigh heavily, Lex allowed himself to be guided back into the ballroom.
Fifty minutes later, his cell phone vibrated, right on schedule. He said a silent prayer to deities he'd only just started to believe in and excused himself with a casual glance at the caller I.D. on the phone and, "This is an important call that I must take. If you'll excuse me."
He stepped away from his father's boring business associate. "Lex Luthor."
"It's January in Colorado now, and I still want to kiss you."
Lex stepped into the foyer. "Well, then, I'll have to kiss you in Colorado then, sometime." He opened the coat room door and stepped inside, running a finger along the coats as he walked further in.
"Promises, promises."
"I never make promises. I make threats. Wait. That came out wrong. It should be the other way around."
Clark laughed out loud. "Well, whether it was a threat or a promise, I'll be happy to take you up on it sometime."
"Maybe we'll go skiing next winter. Hell, maybe we'll go skiing next week. You ski?"
"Lex. I'm from Kansas. You know. Flatter than flat? I don't think that snow, vertical surfaces and I have ever been in the same place at the same time."
"Oh. Well, you're pretty sturdy. I'm sure I can teach you."
"I'm probably unteachable. I'd probably kill someone."
"You? Never!"
The certainty in Lex's tone took Clark's breath away. "How can you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Sound so sure that I'm not a total failure."
"Because I am sure, Clark." Silently, he cursed Jonathan and Martha Kent, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, Lana Lang, Whitney Fordham, and anyone else he'd forgotten to mention for making this gem feel like common gravel. Oh, and Nell Potter. Why? Just because.
Lex found his coat, finally, in the darkness of the coat room.
"Lex?" Clark's voice was unsure.
"Er. Oof. Just a second." Still holding the cell phone in one hand, Lex shrugged into his coat. "Ah. There."
He opened the door of the coat room.
"Lex? What's going on?"
Lex crossed the foyer and pushed the "down" button for the elevator. "Listen, we're about to be cut off, so can you be over at my place at seven tonight? Bring a movie of your choice." And then Lex said the last thing he expected he'd ever say about the lonely castle on the edge of the cornfields. "I'm heading home."
Five hours and fifty-five minutes later, Lex heard a knock on the door just as the alarm on his new watch sounded.
He opened the door and Clark was standing there, awkwardly shuffling from one foot to the other. "Hi." He said, looking down at his feet.
"Hello, Clark." Lex leaned forward slightly, attempting to make eye contact with the boy. "You want to come in?"
Clark looked up slightly and Lex almost grabbed him and kissed him right there. "Yeah." He shook a videotape box in his right hand. "I brought a movie."
"Good. Which one?"
"Um, well, Moulin Rouge."
"Oh." Lex answered, somewhat confusedly, as he admitted Clark into the castle.
"Yeah. Well, I sort of asked Chloe what would be a good movie for, well, kissage, and she suggested this one."
"Kissage?" He shook his head, as if to clear it. "Wait a minute. You told Chloe that you were going to kiss Lex Luthor tonight, and asked her opinion about what movie to bring?"
"No. I sort of let her think that it was, you know, a Lana thing."
Lex wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Let her think?"
Clark finally looked up. "Well, I just asked her about romantic movies, and she brought Lana into it, so I just ran with it."
Without pausing for breath, Clark changed the subject. "I hope videotape's all right."
Lex nodded. "I prefer videotape, actually." He replied enigmatically.
Clark watched the movie.
Lex watched Clark.
Lex knew the overall plot of the movie -- it was after all, a version of the tale of Camille, the consumptive courtesan, and her ill-fated love for Armand. In this case, Camille's name was Satine, and Armand's name was Christian, but the tale ends the same.
The real show was Clark's reactions to the film. Lex wondered if he'd ever felt *anything* as strongly as Clark felt that movie.
He laughed as the Argentinan fell through the ceiling, leading to Christian's introduction to Henri and his associates.
He blushed at the close-ups of the dancers' crotches in the Moulin Rouge.
He flinched as Christian was caught by the Duke in the elephant.
He got goosebumps during the love medley.
He nearly climbed into Lex's lap as the Duke assaulted Satine.
And as Satine died in Christian's arms, one tear leaked down his cheek.
Finally, as the credits rolled, Clark looked at Lex. "Now I don't feel like kissing at all."
"That bad, huh?"
"She *died*, Lex! How's that romantic?"
"Oh, I don't know, I found death to be fairly romantic. But then, Satine's angel wasn't able to rescue her." He held his arms out and Clark slid along the sofa into Lex's comforting embrace.
A few minutes later, Lex broke the silence. "Hey, happy birthday, by the way."
Clark sniffled. "What? Oh, yeah, thanks."
"Come with me." Lex gently disentangled himself from Clark and stood, holding his hand out.
Clark stood, grasping Lex's hand, and together they left the room.
"I know you like camping and all that stuff. To me, roughing it is a hotel without room service, but I found that one of Dad's faceless minions is a camper or whatever and asked him for a bit of help with something. I just hope he wasn't shitting me."
Lex led Clark out the back of the house and into an atrium. Cold air whipped through from somewhere, Clark couldn't see in the darkness. But he could see a glow ahead, almost like the glow of, "A campfire?"
Lex nodded. "Yeah. They're predicting snow for tonight, so we had to do this indoors. I'll only go so far for romance, at least before the first kiss, and so we took out a couple of panes of glass over there," Lex pointed to one far end of the atrium, "and over there," he pointed the other way, "for ventilation and Derek or Darren or whoever he was built a fire. He went home at eight, so he lit it before he left. He promised me it'd last until at least ten."
Clark nodded. "It could use a little more wood, though."
"I assume that's around here somewhere. He also suggested I lay in a supply of . . . that stuff." Lex pointed uneasily towards a table just on the edge of the ring of light cast by the fire.
Clark walked to the table and saw several bags of marshmallows, a couple of boxes of graham crackers and a box full of some fancy candy bars that Clark had never heard of. "You got stuff to make s'mores?"
Lex's eyes shone with relief. "That was for real, then?"
Clark nodded. "Yeah. They're great. A little messy, but you'll love them."
And Clark set to work, stoking the fire, helping Lex skewer his marshmallows, giving him pointers on how to toast the marshmallows correctly, and helping Lex assemble his gooey sandwich, which took several attempts, and still turned out lopsided.
Finally, both laughing like children, they ate.
"These are good!" Lex said around a mouthful of marshmallow.
"You've got a smudge of chocolate there."
"Where?"
"Right." Clark pointed on his own face, then sighed and reached out a finger, swiping at the corner of Lex's mouth. "There." He stuck his finger in his mouth, licking the chocolate off.
Lex couldn't help wishing Clark had licked the chocolate off, but he knew that this had to be Clark's decision and happen at Clark's pace.
Finally, faces and hands covered with chocolate and melted marshmallow, Clark asked Lex casually, "Is it January on American Samoa or wherever yet?"
Lex nodded. "I think it's January everywhere by now."
"Good. Because I still want to kiss you."
"Are you sure?"
Clark nodded. "I've never been surer of anything."
"Well, then. Allow me." Lex licked most of the chocolate from his fingers and, as suavely as he could with butterflies dancing through his veins, pulled Clark closer to him. "This is when you close your eyes, Clark." He coached.
"Oh." Clark followed Lex's instruction.
Lex reached up and kissed Clark ever. so. gently. Then, he increased the pressure slightly, encouraging Clark to part his lips slightly. Clark complied willingly.
Lex, aware of the marshmallow residue still on his fingers, fought the urge to slide his hands up into Clark's hair. Marshmallow on his shirt would be much easier to explain away than in his hair.
They kissed for several more minutes and then finally, reluctantly, separated.
"Wow." Clark blinked.
"That does pretty much sum it up." Lex said easily.
Clark narrowed his eyes at Lex. "That didn't affect you at all, did it?"
"Of course it did. I just have years of experience keeping my composure."
Clark's eyes twinkled in the half-light of the burning embers. "Well, let's go wash our hands, and then I'll see how I do at making you lose your composure."
Author: PepperjackCandy
Series: Prequel to the "Honesty" series, sequel to Christmas - An "Honesty" Prequel
Archive : Smallville Slash Archive, my writing at fanfiction.net
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Category: Romance
Spoilers for: Moulin Rouge, my own Honesty series
Disclaimer: I own nothing Smallville-related, or related in any other way to Clark Kent, Superman or any of the various creations of the wonderful folks at DC Comics.
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.
A/N: For those who've caught up on Honesty, remember, this is two months prior to Lex's kidnapping Clark in Chapter 1. This will be important to remember later.
WARNING: If you haven't seen "Moulin Rouge" yet, go out and rent it, then come back and read this. Unless you want the whole darned thing spoiled for you.
=============
At 12:03 a.m., Lex's cell phone rang. He answered it without glancing at the caller ID. "Lex Luthor."
It was Clark. "Hey, Lex. I just wanted to call and tell you that it's January and I still want to kiss you."
Warmth spread through his stomach and into his groin at these words. He hurried from the room and into the cloak room, where he'd spent so many Christmases. If his father caught him in there, he'd assume that Lex was regressing. When he was finally alone, he responded. "Clark! I thought you understood that I meant a little *farther* into January."
He could almost hear Clark shrugging. "You didn't say when in January. And in further news, I'm sixteen now."
"What? When did that happen?"
"Oh, about," Clark paused, "four minutes ago."
"It's your birthday?" Lex wondered how in all of his research, he'd missed something as obvious as Clark having a New Year's Day birthday.
"Well, my folks considered a lot of dates - February second, April first . . . finally they decided on January first. You know, new beginnings, all that."
"Very fitting." Lex said candidly. "You've been a source of new beginnings to everyone whose lives you've touched."
"Everyone?"
"Yes. Everyone."
"I wanted to call you at midnight, but, you know, I had to spend the first minutes of the new year with my folks."
"Well, there are still two to go."
"Huh?"
Lex laughed. "Mountain and Pacific time. In," he glanced at his watch, "fifty-four and one hour and fifty-four minutes from now. And that's not counting Alaska, or Hawaii, or . . ."
"All right. All right." Clark interrupted, laughing. "I'll call you back in fifty-four minutes, then."
"Fifty-three."
Clark sighed heavily. "All right. Let's synchronize our watches. I have 12:07."
"12:08, and it's synched with the Naval Observatory's atomic clock."
"All right. I now have," a brief pause while Clark set his watch, "12:09."
"Close enough."
"Good. I'll call you back in fifty-one minutes."
Lex laughed warmly. "I'll look forward to it."
Lex exited the coat room, tucking his cell phone back into his pocket and thanking whatever impulse had led him to get a cell phone local to Smallville. Clark could call him and talk all night without his parents being any the wiser. A phone call to Metropolis, on the other hand . . .
Lionel joined his son in the foyer. "There you are, Lex."
"I just had to . . . take care of some personal business."
"Well, I have another potential client that I want to introduce you to."
Trying to reign in his impulse to sigh heavily, Lex allowed himself to be guided back into the ballroom.
Fifty minutes later, his cell phone vibrated, right on schedule. He said a silent prayer to deities he'd only just started to believe in and excused himself with a casual glance at the caller I.D. on the phone and, "This is an important call that I must take. If you'll excuse me."
He stepped away from his father's boring business associate. "Lex Luthor."
"It's January in Colorado now, and I still want to kiss you."
Lex stepped into the foyer. "Well, then, I'll have to kiss you in Colorado then, sometime." He opened the coat room door and stepped inside, running a finger along the coats as he walked further in.
"Promises, promises."
"I never make promises. I make threats. Wait. That came out wrong. It should be the other way around."
Clark laughed out loud. "Well, whether it was a threat or a promise, I'll be happy to take you up on it sometime."
"Maybe we'll go skiing next winter. Hell, maybe we'll go skiing next week. You ski?"
"Lex. I'm from Kansas. You know. Flatter than flat? I don't think that snow, vertical surfaces and I have ever been in the same place at the same time."
"Oh. Well, you're pretty sturdy. I'm sure I can teach you."
"I'm probably unteachable. I'd probably kill someone."
"You? Never!"
The certainty in Lex's tone took Clark's breath away. "How can you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Sound so sure that I'm not a total failure."
"Because I am sure, Clark." Silently, he cursed Jonathan and Martha Kent, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, Lana Lang, Whitney Fordham, and anyone else he'd forgotten to mention for making this gem feel like common gravel. Oh, and Nell Potter. Why? Just because.
Lex found his coat, finally, in the darkness of the coat room.
"Lex?" Clark's voice was unsure.
"Er. Oof. Just a second." Still holding the cell phone in one hand, Lex shrugged into his coat. "Ah. There."
He opened the door of the coat room.
"Lex? What's going on?"
Lex crossed the foyer and pushed the "down" button for the elevator. "Listen, we're about to be cut off, so can you be over at my place at seven tonight? Bring a movie of your choice." And then Lex said the last thing he expected he'd ever say about the lonely castle on the edge of the cornfields. "I'm heading home."
Five hours and fifty-five minutes later, Lex heard a knock on the door just as the alarm on his new watch sounded.
He opened the door and Clark was standing there, awkwardly shuffling from one foot to the other. "Hi." He said, looking down at his feet.
"Hello, Clark." Lex leaned forward slightly, attempting to make eye contact with the boy. "You want to come in?"
Clark looked up slightly and Lex almost grabbed him and kissed him right there. "Yeah." He shook a videotape box in his right hand. "I brought a movie."
"Good. Which one?"
"Um, well, Moulin Rouge."
"Oh." Lex answered, somewhat confusedly, as he admitted Clark into the castle.
"Yeah. Well, I sort of asked Chloe what would be a good movie for, well, kissage, and she suggested this one."
"Kissage?" He shook his head, as if to clear it. "Wait a minute. You told Chloe that you were going to kiss Lex Luthor tonight, and asked her opinion about what movie to bring?"
"No. I sort of let her think that it was, you know, a Lana thing."
Lex wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Let her think?"
Clark finally looked up. "Well, I just asked her about romantic movies, and she brought Lana into it, so I just ran with it."
Without pausing for breath, Clark changed the subject. "I hope videotape's all right."
Lex nodded. "I prefer videotape, actually." He replied enigmatically.
Clark watched the movie.
Lex watched Clark.
Lex knew the overall plot of the movie -- it was after all, a version of the tale of Camille, the consumptive courtesan, and her ill-fated love for Armand. In this case, Camille's name was Satine, and Armand's name was Christian, but the tale ends the same.
The real show was Clark's reactions to the film. Lex wondered if he'd ever felt *anything* as strongly as Clark felt that movie.
He laughed as the Argentinan fell through the ceiling, leading to Christian's introduction to Henri and his associates.
He blushed at the close-ups of the dancers' crotches in the Moulin Rouge.
He flinched as Christian was caught by the Duke in the elephant.
He got goosebumps during the love medley.
He nearly climbed into Lex's lap as the Duke assaulted Satine.
And as Satine died in Christian's arms, one tear leaked down his cheek.
Finally, as the credits rolled, Clark looked at Lex. "Now I don't feel like kissing at all."
"That bad, huh?"
"She *died*, Lex! How's that romantic?"
"Oh, I don't know, I found death to be fairly romantic. But then, Satine's angel wasn't able to rescue her." He held his arms out and Clark slid along the sofa into Lex's comforting embrace.
A few minutes later, Lex broke the silence. "Hey, happy birthday, by the way."
Clark sniffled. "What? Oh, yeah, thanks."
"Come with me." Lex gently disentangled himself from Clark and stood, holding his hand out.
Clark stood, grasping Lex's hand, and together they left the room.
"I know you like camping and all that stuff. To me, roughing it is a hotel without room service, but I found that one of Dad's faceless minions is a camper or whatever and asked him for a bit of help with something. I just hope he wasn't shitting me."
Lex led Clark out the back of the house and into an atrium. Cold air whipped through from somewhere, Clark couldn't see in the darkness. But he could see a glow ahead, almost like the glow of, "A campfire?"
Lex nodded. "Yeah. They're predicting snow for tonight, so we had to do this indoors. I'll only go so far for romance, at least before the first kiss, and so we took out a couple of panes of glass over there," Lex pointed to one far end of the atrium, "and over there," he pointed the other way, "for ventilation and Derek or Darren or whoever he was built a fire. He went home at eight, so he lit it before he left. He promised me it'd last until at least ten."
Clark nodded. "It could use a little more wood, though."
"I assume that's around here somewhere. He also suggested I lay in a supply of . . . that stuff." Lex pointed uneasily towards a table just on the edge of the ring of light cast by the fire.
Clark walked to the table and saw several bags of marshmallows, a couple of boxes of graham crackers and a box full of some fancy candy bars that Clark had never heard of. "You got stuff to make s'mores?"
Lex's eyes shone with relief. "That was for real, then?"
Clark nodded. "Yeah. They're great. A little messy, but you'll love them."
And Clark set to work, stoking the fire, helping Lex skewer his marshmallows, giving him pointers on how to toast the marshmallows correctly, and helping Lex assemble his gooey sandwich, which took several attempts, and still turned out lopsided.
Finally, both laughing like children, they ate.
"These are good!" Lex said around a mouthful of marshmallow.
"You've got a smudge of chocolate there."
"Where?"
"Right." Clark pointed on his own face, then sighed and reached out a finger, swiping at the corner of Lex's mouth. "There." He stuck his finger in his mouth, licking the chocolate off.
Lex couldn't help wishing Clark had licked the chocolate off, but he knew that this had to be Clark's decision and happen at Clark's pace.
Finally, faces and hands covered with chocolate and melted marshmallow, Clark asked Lex casually, "Is it January on American Samoa or wherever yet?"
Lex nodded. "I think it's January everywhere by now."
"Good. Because I still want to kiss you."
"Are you sure?"
Clark nodded. "I've never been surer of anything."
"Well, then. Allow me." Lex licked most of the chocolate from his fingers and, as suavely as he could with butterflies dancing through his veins, pulled Clark closer to him. "This is when you close your eyes, Clark." He coached.
"Oh." Clark followed Lex's instruction.
Lex reached up and kissed Clark ever. so. gently. Then, he increased the pressure slightly, encouraging Clark to part his lips slightly. Clark complied willingly.
Lex, aware of the marshmallow residue still on his fingers, fought the urge to slide his hands up into Clark's hair. Marshmallow on his shirt would be much easier to explain away than in his hair.
They kissed for several more minutes and then finally, reluctantly, separated.
"Wow." Clark blinked.
"That does pretty much sum it up." Lex said easily.
Clark narrowed his eyes at Lex. "That didn't affect you at all, did it?"
"Of course it did. I just have years of experience keeping my composure."
Clark's eyes twinkled in the half-light of the burning embers. "Well, let's go wash our hands, and then I'll see how I do at making you lose your composure."