AN: In case you were wondering how Jonathan and Lex became such good buddies...
Jonathan watched with an air of dour suspicion as Lex Luthor shut his car door and swaggered up to the farm house's back door.
"Hello, Mr. Kent, is Mrs. Kent in?"
"No, she's not, Lex. But if you have anything to say-" Jonathan paused for dramatic effect but Lex, irritatingly, went ahead.
"Good, because I have something I think you'll want to see, but it's better if she's not around."
"Are you making some kind of threat?"
Jonathan had expected some response other than giggling. A smirk, an air of wrongly accused innocence, a threat, but not a giggle. He didn't much like it and his expression must have shown it.
"Look, Mr. Kent, I just think you want to see this." Lex pulled out a DVD and Jonathan's heart sank. Was it video of Clark that showed his abilities? Jonathan folded his arms sternly and Lex sighed. "All right, if you aren't going to invite me in..." He retreated to his car and brought out a laptop, then inserted the disk.
Jonathan frowned as the video showed Lionel Luthor walking down some stairs in the mansion but relaxed as it showed him stumbling as a tabby kitten rammed him from behind. The video closed in on Lionel's indignant expression and then wiped to a shot of Lionel asleep with an almost impossibly small grey kitten sitting on his chest and drooling on his beard. "She'd just finished some of her treats," Lex explained, sotto voce. "She had perfect tuna breath." The next shot showed the same grey kitten on a dresser, very lightly waving her tail across a hair brush, and a closeup of the brush, showing the grey hairs that clung to it. "She shed just a few more in his brush each day."
Ballet music accompanied the next shots, a collection of the cats stealing food from a sputtering Lionel's plate. "Good editing job," Lex commented, still in a hushed voice. Jonathan nodded, almost hypnotized. "Though I'm not as sure about what they added here," Lex continued. The next shots returned to Lionel in bed, with one cat or another leaping onto his stomach, chest, or face, and off again just as quickly as the influential business magnate sat up each time with an indignant roar. The images were juxtaposed with ballet dancers making tremendous leaps across a stage.
Jonathan started to recover from the shock of what Lex Luthor was showing him and he startled to chuckle, then snicker, then guffaw, and finally howl at the subsequent images of the kittens tripping Lionel, ambushing and clawing his ankles, stealing his possessions and either disappearing with them or moving them to odd locations, and generally conducting successful guerrilla warfare. "Wait, show that last one again, the one where they, where they..." Jonathan wasn't able to finish his request but Lex seemed to know he meant the one where Allie hid on a bookshelf and smacked Lionel's head as he walked by.
By the time the video ended, Jonathan, without taking his eyes from the screen, had guided Lex into the living room where they sat and yelped with laughter. "The beautiful thing," Lex gasped, "is that it never gets old. I don't know how many times I've watched these, but each time..."
Jonathan heard the back door open and Clark came in, then blinked in bewilderment at the sight of his father and Lex holding their ribs, looking at one another, and cracking up again. "Oh, that one where all three girls are on top of him," Jonathan almost groaned.
He and Lex looked up and noticed Clark at about the same time. "Lex, you're showing him those security tapes, aren't you?" Lex took a moment to restore his breathing ability before he answered, "Specially edited version with..." and lost it again.
Jonathan checked his watch. It was much later than he'd thought. "Now, Lex, I can't promise it'll be any good, since Martha's out until later tonight, but if you've got time, you're welcome to stay for dinner."
If he'd had super-hearing, he'd have heard Clark whisper in Lex's ear, "Told you so."