Christmas
By
Tayoni
~*~ Part Five ~*~
Clark slept in the passenger side of Lex's car all the way to Metropolis. From the minute he'd flopped in that seat, he'd gone out like a light and now he was snoring. Lex had never had Clark fall asleep near him before, but he knew from conversations that his friend only snored when he was beyond exhausted.
He managed to get the address of Clark's grandfather from his sleeping friend, who went out again a second later. He parked in the driveway of a quaint looking and beautifully kept property. Clark's grandfather was not a poor man at all. In fact, he was quit rich. It was not a house. That was a mid-sized mansion.
He reached out and nudged Clark's shoulder.
"No. You can't copy." Clark grumbled.
"Clark." Lex said. "Wake up. We're here."
He sat forward and blinked the sleep out of his eyes, cleared his throat, then looked at Lex. "Feel like I only slept for a couple minutes." He complained.
Lex got out of the car.
Clark got out too, and meandered around to the front of the car sleepily, then looked at a car that was parked up ahead in the driveway. "Oh no."
"What?" Lex wondered.
Clark's eyes got big but he smiled. "My Aunt Haydeen is here."
Lex scowled and followed him along the walkway and up the front stairs. "Didn't know you had an Aunt."
Clark touched the door bell. "She's actually my grandfather's sister-in-law. I should warn you she thinks everyone under the age of thirty is a child and her attic is very empty."
"Meaning...?"
The front door of the house opened, and a iron haired woman with a bright smile answered the door. Lex immediately got the impression she was the kind of help who was more like an unofficial family member than a servant. "Hey Clark." She said and they kissed each other's cheeks. "Oh and who's this young gent?"
"My friend Lex." Clark said. "Lex, this is Lorey."
"I'm the maid, they just don't like to admit I'm not actually a relative."
Lex smiled and shook her hand, and couldn't help but to be attracted to her warm motherly kind of charm. She collected their coats and made Lex give her that blasted tie and his stuffy suit jacket, and even unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and rolled his sleeves up for him.
He couldn't help feeling a bit embarrassed.
"Where is everyone, Lorey?" Clark wondered.
"Yer gramp is in the kitchen. Haydeen's sitting in the parlor with a woman whose name I've yet to learn."
"What'd she look like?" Clark wondered.
"Bottle brunet, sniffed down her nose at me."
"Oh. Oh no..." Clark groaned at looked at Lex apologetically.
"Oh, and Clark." Lorey looked left and right. "Steve's here."
Clark got a pained look on his face.
Lorey gave him an understanding look and gave his arm a squeaze. "You just keep yer friend behind you, all right?"
Lex gave Clark a look.
"Come on. Might as well get the nitty gritty over with quickly." Clark said.
Lex followed Clark into a spacious living area decorated with pastels and flowery furniture. Huge picture windows let in the sunshine and showed off the cold winter greenery outdoors.
"OH MY GOODNESS!" A woman exclaimed and leapt out of the chair she'd been sitting in. "OOOOOOOOhhhh! Oooohhhh MYYYY!" She cooed and threw her arms around Clark.
"Corkey is heeeere at laaaast! I haven't seen you in an age!" She said, let him go and then pinched both of his cheeks.
"Ow! Actually, it was just two...weeks ago, Aunt Haydeen." Clark said politely and blushed.
"Like, I said, an age!" She said and grabbed his ears and pulled him down so she could kiss his face about a dozen times. "It's so lovely to see you, Corkey. You've gotten so handsome!"
"It's Clark."
"Of course, Corkey! I'm glad to see you!" She said and hugged him again. "Oh my goodness! I'm so happy you're here!" She said and ruffled his hair and slapped his cheeks, pinched them again, and kissed him some more.
Clark looked quite ruffled and crimson by the time she was through with him, and had to straighten his shirt and smooth his hair back down. Lex wasn't sure if he knew he had lipstick all over his face now.
"Oh, my goodness, and who is this striking young man you brought with you, Corkey?"
Clark grinned, cheeks still pink. "This is my friend, Lex. Lex, my Aunt. Mrs. Haydeen Houston."
"Oh, how nice." She said with a big smile.
"Mrs. Houston." Lex put his hand out, but she grabbed a hold of him and hugged him and pounded his back, then patted his head and kissed each of his cheeks about ten times. She also pinched his cheeks, and yanked one of his earlobes. In the meantime, he felt her hands roaming all over. He was a bit too polite to squirm away from it, but he certainly felt like squirming.
Lex stepped back wide eyed, and smiling. He wasn't sure if he didn't like the attention, but it was a little embarrassing to have a stranger maul him in such a way.
"You really are a very handsome young man." She said holding his hand in both of hers. "You really must stay and have dinner with us. Clark's grampa is fixing us a wonderfull dinner. You look like you could use it too, you're much to thin!"
Lex smiled, still uncertain of what to say. He wondered if he had lipstick all over his face now and felt an urgent desire to hide somewhere safe. "Sure. I'll eat."
She let him go and turned her attentions on Clark. "Oh, I have a surprise for you, Corkey."
"Oh yeah?" He said, but Lex could tell he wasn't looking forward to her gift.
"Yeah, I brought Little Stevie along with me." She said. "He's looking forward to seeing you again."
Clark smiled broadly and a bit too tightly. "Okay, then. I'll...go find him soon's I say hello to grampa. Hey, Lorey mentioned you were talking to someone in here. I don't see her."
"Just yer Aunt Meagan. You remember her, Corkey?"
Clark's eyes got huge and he looked at Lex worriedly, then back at Aunt Haydeen. "Oh, yeah. I remember Aunt Meagan. How could I forget?"
"It's just terrible that you didn't."
Lex grinned tightly, and did his best to not laugh.
"I'll have to have a talk with her before she sees you. You know she's not quite all in her head anymore. I'm afraid she'll think your friend Lex is one of those horrible skinhead people cause he's bald."
"Aunt Haydeen, that's not very nice." Clark said in a shocked tone.
Lex bit his lip almost hard enough to hurt and by some miracle, he held his laughter back.
"Oh, now I haven't offended you have I?" Aunt Haydeen asked and squeazed Lex's forearm.
"No..." He said and choked back his laughter.
"Good, good. I can tell you're not one of those horrible people." She said and touched his head. "You look to me like you got some kind of...oh, I don't know why you got no hair, but it's not cancer, and you didn't shave it. Do you mind if I ask what happened to your hair?"
"Not at all." He said. "I got into an accident when I was a little kid, and I've been bald ever since."
"Oh, I thought it was something like that. How terrible for you. But it's not all bad. You could have lost something more important like your eyeballs or your ear drums, or your teeth, or even your manly parts."
Lex's jaw dropped and his eyes snapped wide open.
Clark laughed helplessly.
Lex busted up too. He just couldn't hold it back.
"Oh, did I say something wrong?"
"No." Lex gasped.
Fighting his laughter, Clark got a hold of Lex's arm. "Aunt Haydeen, we'd better go say...hello to grampa, okay?"
"Oh sure. You better do that now."
Clark hauled Lex out of the room quickly before Aunt Haydeen could make some other comment.
~*~ Part Six ~*~
Clark lead Lex down a hall, to a bathroom first to wash the lipstick off their faces, and then Lex realized Clark was staring at him.
"What? I miss some?" He said and looked in the mirror.
Clark shook his head, and then reached into Lex's shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of m&m's and put it down on the side of the bathroom sink.
Lex scowled. "Where'd that come from?"
"Aunt Haydeen." Clark said. "Before she married my grand-uncle, she was an expert pocket pick. She uses her gifts now to stuff candy into people's pockets."
Lex blinked at that and reached into his pants pockets and pulled a candy bar out of each one.
Clark laughed at him, and pulled a candy bar out of each of his pockets.
Lex chuckled. "I think I like her." He pulled a hershey bar out of his back pocket.
"Check yer wallet."
He checked it and found the kind of bubble gum that came with trading cards. Clark showed him that he got a pack too, and then pulled a bag of skittles out of the fold of Lex's sleeve.
"Woman must have made a fortune." Lex said and pulled hershey's kisses out of the fold of his other sleeve.
"I know, tell me about it." Clark said and pulled a long stick of Taffy out of his shirt, and then motioned at Lex's shirt.
"Where'd she have all that hidden?" Lex wondered and pulled not only Taffy out of his shirt, but two more candy bars, and three lolipops.
"No idea." Clark said and picked up as much candy as he could.
Lex picked up the rest and followed him down the hall and into the kitchen. Both of them dropped all their candy on the kitchen table.
"I see you got the treatment from Aunt Haydeen." A voice said.
Lex saw a guy in his early seventies, who was impossibly taller than Clark by at least three or four inches, pulling oven mits off his hands, and couldn't help smiling at him.
"Hey Grampa!" Clark said happily and hugged him.
"It's about time you got here, Clark!" He said, patted his back and then let him go. "Now who's this young man?"
"Grampa, this is my friend Alexander Luthor. Lex, my grandfather, William Clark." He said politely.
Lex blinked and shook his hand. "Glad to finally meet you, Mr. Clark." He said and felt weird calling someone Mr. 'Clark.'
The older man smiled, cackled a laugh and patted Lex's hand. "You call me Grampa. That is unless you'd like me to call you Mr. Luthor."
He grinned. "Lex is fine...Grampa."
"Good, good. Glad we understand one another." He told him. "I'm actually surprised I haven't met you before now, Lex. I've had business dealings in the past with your father, and your grandfather."
"Pleasant dealings, I hope."
"Business is not always pleasant, Lex." He said with a twinkle in his eye. "But let's just say they both considered me a worthy opponent. The wars we waged in the office never made it out the door or ruined any of our lunch appointments."
"You and my dad were freinds?" Lex wondered.
Clark giggled at something.
"Your grandfather and I were friends." Grampa cracked another smile. "We went to school together he and I. Course he was quite a few grades over me. He took me fishing a few times. Course, neither of us knew what to do with worms and fish hooks until long after we met our wives."
Lex chuckled over that. "I had no idea you were friends with my grandpa."
"It's a small world, Lex." He grinned mysteriously. "I'm sorry you never got to know him."
"Me too."
"You look a little like him. Got that same silly grin he had."
Lex grinned. "Yer not the first person I've heard that from."
"I won't be the last. Maybe we could have a beer later and talk about it?"
"I'd like that." Lex said.
"In the meantime, Clark, why don't you take Lex downstairs to meet," He grinned, or maybe grimaced. "Little Stevie."
"Don't you need help Grampa?" Clark wondered in a begging tone.
"Sure I do. That's why I hired Lorey. You go on, get it over with."
"Do I have to?"
"Oh, go on. He won't hurt you."
"Just my pride." Clark said. "How about I go find Aunt Meagan and throw her down the stairs first?"
"Clark!" Grampa said in a tone.
"I was kidding!" Clark grumbled and ushered Lex down another hall, then down a tight flight of stairs which opened up into a finished off basement with a very high ceiling, or maybe a low floor. He spotted a pool table, and a comfortable looking green sofa, big screen television, and a table with a tray of snacks on it.
Lex hesitated because his sixth sense was telling him he needed to hang back--or better yet, run. Clark walked ahead and then...
Someone came running out of a shadowy corner emitting an enormous battle cry.
Clark yiped and tried to run.
Lex took a step back, startled, and watched a very large chubby boy tackle Clark, then pick him up and throw him over his shoulder. Clark gasped and howled while the chubby overgrown boy spun him around making him dizzy, threatened to drop him on his head, threw him up in the air, caught him again, all the while he kept on spinning.
"PUT ME DOWN!" Clark howled anxiously.
The chubby boy made sounds of great excitement lifted his hand and slapped Clark on the rump so hard...
"OOoooWWW!" Clark howled. "PUT ME DOOOWNN!"
Lex stayed out of the way and stared at the display in shock. He had no idea what to do.
"STEVE! PUT ME DOWN MAN! PUT ME DOWN BEFORE I PUKE ON YOU!" Clark howled out, voice breaking pubescently.
At last Steve put Clark down on his feet, then looked at Lex mischeif written all over his face.
Lex actually considered running away.
Clark flopped on the carpetted floor, groaned, and lay still.
Except to step over top of him, Steve ignored Clark and walked toward Lex. He stood in front of him, and even though Lex was still standing up on a step, the boy still looking down at him. "Wow, a little bald guy, weren't you the midget in that Austin Power's movie?"
Lex stiffened, too shocked at such a blatant remark to either laugh or get angry.
"I'm Little Stevie." The humungous chubby boy said, and offered his hand.
"Lex..." He said put his hand out hesitantly.
"Lex, don't..." Clark tried.
Lex let out a yipe of surprise and tried to yank his hand away, but he was stuck. The jolt of electricity was short, but he was still shocked.
Fat boy laughed like a hyena and grabbed him into a bear hug, squeazed him so hard it hurt, and made him squeak like a toy. But more was to come. He was lifted off his feet, head kissed, then rubbed. "Oh, nice and smooth!" Steve complimented, and kept on squeazing him and carried him away from the stairs. "I got a new toy! A squeaky, shiney baldee head man! Think he'd make a good que ball."
Lex couldn't breathe. "Get off me!" He weazed.
"Steve, put him down before you break him!" Clark said.
"Course." He said and let go of Lex.
Lex fell on the carpet next to Clark gasping for air. He saw Steve reach down, take a handfull of Clark and haul him to his feet like he was nothing. "Wanna play pool?" He wondered like nothing was unusual about his manner of greeting people.
"No. I don't want to play pool!" Clark ordered and reached down to help poor Lex to his feet.
Lex twisted his shirt back to rights, but didn't bother to tuck it back into his pants. It didn't surprise him to see a candy bar had fallen out of his clothes. He picked it up, and then realized he'd lost a shoe too, and recovered it.
"Aw, gee. No wonder you don't wanna play pool, Clark. It's only for two players! Where are my manners? Okay, let's play catch! Lex can be the ball."
Lex took a quick step to the side before Steve could grab him.
Steve smiled. "I was kidding!"
"No, you weren't." Clark said grumpily.
"Oh, come on. Where's your sense of humor, Corkey?"
"I must have left it in the car." Clark grunted and straightened his shirt for the second time.
"Well if you don't want to play, I'm sure Lex will."
"No. He doesn't want to play pool with you either." Clark said and got in Steve's way so he couldn't attack Lex. "Not your idea of it anyway."
"STEVE! What'd I tell you about using yer cousin and his freinds as chew toys?" Grampa's voice shot through an intercom.
Steve touched a switch. "Uhhhh...to not do it?" He wondered innocently.
"Get up here, gimme a hand with the table!"
"Coming, Grampa." Steve said and rushed up the stairs.
Lex flopped weakly into the nearest chair. "Little Stevie?"
"Little John was already taken by my Uncle Little John. Steve's grampa." Clark said with a small grin.
"Ah." Lex said.
"Don't let him talk you into playing pool."
He looked at Clark. "What's his version of the game?"
"Picking up his opponent, carrying him out back and throwing him in the swimming pool."
Lex laughed. "How many times did you end up in the pool, Clark?"
Clark grinned, cleared his throat. "Lost count."
Lex laughed again.
Clark grumbled. "Ugh...think I am gonna puke."
"You go do that and I'll go find a bandage to put on my pride."
Neither of them moved.
Eventually they looked at each other and laughed.
Someone was coming down the stairs.
Clark and Lex glanced at each other...
Steve appeared. "TA-DAAAA!" He said, but Lex and Clark were hiding under the stairs, and they didn't come out when he called. The two of them snuck back up the stairs very quickly while he had his back turned.
"AAWWW! COME ON YOU GUYS! I JUST WANNA PLAY!...with Lex's head." He said and chased them up the stairs.
Lex and Clark ran faster.
Thanks so much to everyone who submitted reviews on my work. I really appreciate it more than you'll ever know. I worship the toilet seats you…errrr…
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I worship the newspaper you put your filthy shoes on.