Thanks to Meret for this great pic! Click to see the full sized image.

Expectations: A Merry Little Christmas

It was rumored they were the spawn of Satan.   Clark looked over at the scene by the fireplace. Lionel was lecturing Lexine about the origins of the season as the triplets looked up at him from their rocker seats, their paternal grandfather's relentless gesticulating capturing their attention.

"Mall Santas, now that was a lucrative bit of genius. A fat guy in a red suit, a camera, fake snow, some film and you have your advertising and your attraction for an entire month. If you make sure you get a real fat guy, you don't even have to bother with padding. That's always been my motto for LuthorCorp Christmas parties; hire the real fat guys."

Lex walked in, catching Lionel's summary of the season and rolled his eyes, exchanging glances with Clark. He was beginning to see Lex's point about having an on-staff deprogrammer.

Lexine's eyes had narrowed and she was looking up at her Grandpa Lionel.

"No."

Lionel stopped in mid-sentence and looked at her, not quite sure how to deal with that.

"No," the little girl reiterated, not adding anything else before she started to chew on the ear of her stuffed Barney the Dinosaur. The 'no' game was one of her favorite tactics, one that usually ended with a cookie bribe, since Clark and Lex could never quite figure out what was causing her to react. Lex had a sneaking suspicion the game itself was played for cookies, and Clark had a sneaking suspicion Lex was right.

Clark stifled a snicker at his father-in-law's expression and amused himself for a moment with thoughts of a Lionel/Barney the Dinosaur face off.

Lex gave his father a rare show of mercy and got his daughter a cookie; a hand sized Christmas tree with green royal icing and sprinkles. Lexine graced her papa with a self-satisfied smile, abandoning Barney's ear. Lionel's expression as he looked at his granddaughter was uncomfortably calculating.

They were definitely the grand-spawn of Satan. Whether that meant that the evil was diluted or concentrated was still up in the air.

Jonatha waved her arm around, capturing her nanny's attention, her dark hair shining in the firelight. Clark had to admit, as bad as it would sound from Lex Luthor's husband, he had been very glad when his daughter's hair had started to grow. Bald was stunningly sexy on his husband, but fairly perturbing in his infant daughter.

And the hair growth had curtailed Martha Stewart and the orgy of bonnet making that had taken over the west dining room. The first set had itched and had mysteriously ended up on the disembodied head of a zebra Lionel had taken down in Africa.

Clark thought the zebra had looked quite dapper. Lionel and Martha Stewart had not been amused. Lex was more amused by their not being amused than by the zebra outfitted in pink. He'd also lost points by telling his father that pink was not a good color for either Jonatha or the zebra.

But Christmas at Luthor castle had always been something of a production, never more so than that first year when the Kent and the Luthor clans had gathered to celebrate the season. Clark had a feeling that a reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg and that first Luthor - Kent Christmas were pretty similar, right down to the cannons.

As tradition dictated, the stockings that Martha had made for them hung by the chimney with care. The twenty-foot Christmas tree shone brightly with hundreds of decorations Martha Stewart had made from America Online disks. Tonight, sometime after the second bottle of Merlot, Clark had decided the ones with the little rainbow flags were his favorite.

Clark was ready for the holidays. Life before the triplets now seemed like a tranquil memory, an almost mythical time when he and Lex had never discussed things like number one or number two in the middle of dining out. Luckily, four-star Metropolis restaurants were willing to behave like a fast food drive thru for Lex Luthor and family.

They had started eating in or taking the babies with them after the disastrous day two of the nannies had been on duty when Lionel came to call while Clark and Lex were trying to enjoy a dinner out in Smallville.

The Lionel Lecture apparently had begun with Social Theory 101, moving into Will to Power. The quoting of Whitman after Kant had been too much for one nanny; she'd left that night, and the other not long after, when it became clear that Lionel would show up every time Clark and Lex left the castle without the babies in tow.

That left them with four babies, two Marthas, a Jonathan, a Lionel, the two remaining nannies and Mrs. Vandergrift, who acted as their nanny supervisor. What they really needed were a few shocktroopers.

Clark's leave from the Planet was open-ended, even though the Planet was interested in a column, something along the lines of Life with SuperDaddy.

Anecdotes of an alien father and his husband, who just happened to be somewhat of a meteor mutant. Clark, however, was still on the fence about it. Did he really want to use his children this way, to advance his career? Lex had simply raised an eyebrow at the question and left for the office. Clark understood after opening the evening edition of the Planet to see the Christmas season ad for LuthorCorp, which included a full page, full color copy of their most recent family photo.

The family photo in which the photographer had managed to re-add the fifty pounds Clark had lost since the birth. Thank god the stretch marks were hidden under the red sweater. Lex would pay for that. Clark did have some ammo, those cherished family memories, like the bonfire that had gone horribly, horribly wrong when Lex, in a fit of romantic pique, had thrown Clark's remaining flip flops on the flames. Only to remember basic chemistry too late -- throwing rubber on a roaring fire just wasn't the thing to do.

As his husband ran a Fortune 100 company, Clark doubted that it would go over well at the stockholder's meeting, stories of running around looking for fire extinguishers and bribing the local fire department. Though it would *just* be a story, since Lex had destroyed all the evidence of the blaze. The wily bastard.

But there were things Clark didn't particularly want out there for public consumption, just for his own peace of mind. Tales of nursing bras and the lactation habits of a Kryptonian male. Even the happier tales, like the story of the first night he had returned to patrol, returning to find Lex on the bed covered in babies, still seemed too personal to share. Clexiel had been drooling on the shareholders report Lex had been trying to read; Jonatha, her dark hair a fine mess of short curls, was kicking at the pillow next to them, a little frown on her face, while Julian snored softly, fingers up his nose.

Lexine was curled next to her papa and had been the first to wake, giving Clark an annoyed look before reaching up to be held. Clark figured he must be a little post partum, or whatever the equivalent was for men -- the sight had started him bawling; he'd even been sniffling through the session of 'moo cow' that followed.

It was just par for their particular course that even the really, really good times were Wall of Weird fodder.

This year, Kent - Luthor family Thanksgiving had been on the farm, Martha having edged out Martha Stewart in the feast planning. Traditional had been the operative word and Clark had finally relaxed, the babies cared for by friends and family while he and Lex escaped to the barn for a nap and snuggle before dinner.

The competition didn't stop with the Marthas. This year, egged on by the need to be the bestest grandpa ever to three more grandbabies, Jonathan had decided that there was no way that Lionel Luthor was going to show him up. Three days before Christmas he had arrived at the castle and with help from the staff had set up a nativity scene in the downstairs drawing room. There were wonderfully detailed carvings of Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, and an assortment of shepherds and Wise men.

All of which were life-sized.

And then there were the animals.

All sorts of animals, including a calf and Sparky, Lexine's pet goat kid. The little donkey had been sent back to the farm after it kicked Travis and ate an antique Belgian lace seat cover. There were bunnies, puppies, and kittens - everywhere. Clark doubted that the small animals had been at the original manger, but small fluffy animals were never a bad move when trying to impress children.

Lex had considered the move worthy of a Luthor; Jonathan's expression at this pronouncement had been classic. It was only a little revenge on Lex's part; he was popping antacids by the handful and threatening to develop diabetes due to the overdose of sentimental sugar. His ire, of course, insured that all the cute and fuzzy critters were following him around demanding to be petted.

Pine-scented air freshener was sprayed every half an hour to help with the smell. One of the gardener's sons was going to be able to put himself through college, maybe even medical school, by acting as the de facto shepherd to the menagerie.

Cook had been forcefully prevented from going after a calf named Bucky when the Smallville Butcher Shop forgot the veal. Clark had intervened, figuring a slaughterhouse in the downstairs parlor might be a bit traumatizing to the children.

Lex, still stewing with righteous indignation after a cow-patty slide across the marble floor the day before, had seemed to be actually considering the abattoir. Only ruthless cooing in the direction of the blessed manger by the babies had stopped him. Lex might be merciless in other things, but he was no match for his children.

Only god knew the tell-all biography they'd write when they were old enough if Lex had let cook make Bucky the entree.

Looking back over toward the fire, Clark saw those same children were currently the center of attention, their grandparents competing for their half pint-sized attention like it was an Olympic Gold Medal Event. The triplets' two months old attention span was pretty much filled with cooing, staring, and other less polite responses, but it seemed to satisfy their grandparents.

Seeing the best chance he and Lex would have for a few minutes alone all weekend, Clark caught Lex's eye and nodded in the direction of the door.

The small drawing room next to the War Room had a lovely inset archway that the decorators had taken advantage of to hang a ridiculous amount of mistletoe. It was the best kind of cliche, Clark had informed Lex, cutting off a rant of epic proportions. He'd put his heart into the convincing and Lex had agreed in the end; after all, what was better than having a free pass to make out while the rest of the family watched the kids?

Not to mention the sheer entertainment value to be gotten from watching Toby trying to lure Martha Stewart to the mistletoe. He had caught her once - Clark had seen Toby plant one on Martha Stewart when he'd been on a diaper run. Whether it was a 'good thing' or not remained to be seen. Clark had had to put on a burst of super speed, running upstairs carrying a squalling Clexiel, just as Toby had dipped Martha Stewart.
Clark tried to put the memory out of his head as he pulled Lex to him, making sure that mistletoe was put to good use. Lex was definitely into it, kissing him back, getting closer than they'd been for months, Clark's stomach finally toned down to his former buffness.

"Oh, yeah," Clark murmured as Lex slid one hand under his slacks and into the small of his back, just petting the skin, pressing Clark closer. Lex's tongue moved slowly over Clark's, and oh, that was so good. Of course, it was stuff like this that had gotten him in trouble, not once, but twice, and the twice was kind of exponential and all, but god, that was good.

Clark was just about to suggest making a run upstairs when he felt a bump on his ass. But Lex's hands were holding his hips under his shirt...

"Baaahhhh."

Clark leaned his forehead against Lex's, trying to stifle a frustrated and somewhat unmanly laugh.

"Clark."

From Lex's tone Clark guessed he was going to have do something spectacular once the kids were in bed to ensure they didn't have mutton tomorrow.

"Sparky."

Looking down again, Clark saw his little redhead pulling on the goat's collar. "Come, Sparky."

"Lexine, put Sparky in his pen," Clark told his daughter firmly.

"Yes, Daddy."

They watched as she carefully led the kid back into the hall, closing the door and obviously giving it a body blow from the other side to close it firmly.

"We're going to have to send the goat to obedience school, aren't we?"

"Well, if you want an obedient goat, I guess so," Clark replied, only half teasing.

"Can we send the kids to obedience school?"

"Lex!"

"Joking, joking."

"No, you weren't."

Lex gave him a grin before pulling him back in.

The Kents had always opened gifts on Christmas Eve, it was just easier, after chores were done, to take the time to relax and eat a huge meal and open presents. The Luthors had celebrated on Christmas Day until Lillian Luthor's death. The years after hadn't been much for holidays.

Clark was convinced that the arrival of the children, starting with Lexine, had prompted Lex's second childhood. This year, even more than last, the mansion was decked from the halls out with Christmas cheer. The designers had snowmen dressed up as carolers on the drive up to the house. There were ice sculptures; a particularly brilliant one involved a Warrior Angel tableau of Devilicus and Warrior Angel opening presents together. It made Clark's head hurt.

The designers had a staff who came in every night to check the lights and to make sure the snowmen were snowy and the ice sculptures icy. Clark had seen their van from the nursery windows as it left the estate. He couldn't blame them for wanting to get home to their families.

Clark watched as Lexine opened yet another box. They had forgotten to set limits for the grandparents and Lexine was making quite the haul. Her brothers and sisters weren't doing too badly either; each was in their little rocker cradle with a primary colored bear from their grandparents Kent. Little knitted beanies on their heads from Martha Stewart. For all his father's insistence that the wealth spoiled children, Jonathan wasn't averse to spoiling them himself.

Lionel's expression reminded Clark of a well-fed lion he'd once seen when covering a story at Metropolis Zoo. It was making his skin crawl, but he knew he'd just have to wait and see how it played out.

The last tray of cookies had been passed around and Lex was collecting ripped wrapping paper into a bag for recycling when Lionel stood up and gave Clark an envelope.

"I'll let you and Lex open this, since the children are a little young for it. But they'll grow into it."

Lex put the recycling bag down behind the sofa and sat back down next to Clark, looking at his father questioningly. "What did you do, Dad?"

"Just open it, Clark."

Lex nodded at Clark and he ripped the envelope open. He pulled out two long pieces of legalese filled paper and handed one to Lex, unfolding the other to read himself.

At first, it didn't quite make sense. After a second glance it was just too absurd to be real.

"You bought the National Football League for the kids?"

"And Major League Baseball?" Lex added, still reading the paper.

Lionel nodded, satisfaction all but oozing from every pore.

"Children's sports organizations are too haphazard. This way they can play in a structured environment that knows that you play to win."

Jonathan was staring at Lionel, not quite comprehending, but Martha was apparently harder to shock. "You want to turn the pro football and baseball leagues into the peewee leagues?"

"Well, not just peewee, it will have to accommodate all ages so my grandchildren can play as they grow."

"That's the most insane thing I've ever heard of!" Jonathan protested, still looking shell-shocked.

"Dad, you do realize that people are not likely to pay for tickets to see seven year olds play football, right?"

"Please, Lex. Marketing. You need to create a demand. Once you do that, they'll come."

"Were you hit over the head recently, Lionel?" Clark asked, more amused than concerned. "Any blunt force traumas?"

"Clark, really. You of all people should know that ideas that seem absurd are actually quite sane."

"Dad," Lex started, intent on cutting off the fiftieth rehashing of the 'alien cum Superman' discussion. "What if the children don't want to play sports?"

"Of course they'll want to play sports. With their lineage, they'd be foolish not to. The odds of them not being able to out perform…"

Lex sat up a little straighter next to Clark, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his father. "Dad, I'm not going to allow you to bet on your grandchildren."

Lionel's expression was one of innocence. Clark knew that look. "Lionel."

"I'm hurt that you would even think that I would want to do that."

Jonathan snorted, but his sharp retort was cut off by the echoing sound of the front hall doors being slammed open.

"What the hell?" Lex started over to the door to the War Room while Clark focused his x-ray vision on the front hall.

Uh-oh.

"Lex, get away from the door," Clark yelled as the doors flew open, slamming Lex back against the wall.

Three snowmen -- well, two snowmen and one snowwoman, were standing in the open door. They lumbered in, one tree branch hand slamming Travis back into the hall as he came up behind them. Their eyes were glowing, one red, one green on each snow person.

Clark saw Jonathan and Lex exchange horrified looks and felt himself go limp as pain started to shoot from his head, meeting at his spine and starting to slip into his blood. Slow, leeching pain.

"Martha," he heard Lex yell as the snow people's potato (organic reds from the farm) mouths curled into cruel red smiles. "Martha, get the children to the library." He nodded his head in the direction of the other main door to the room. "Jonathan, grab Clark and get him out of here." Both Marthas moved to take the babies, the triplets crying as Lexine screamed.

"No!" Clark tried to push his father away, knowing that Lex was just crazy enough to try to deal with this on his own. "No, I need to..."

"Falling on the floor in front of them isn't going to help," Lex ground out as he pushed the sofa over between them and the snow people, who were just watching them.

"Exactly. Now if the cannons were still here in the War Room," Lionel said snidely, watching the snow people with a fascinated expression, "we'd have a defense."

"It's called baby-proofing, Luthor." Jonathan glared at his son's father-in-law as he pulled Clark over to the side of the room.

"You would say that, Jonathan. But we all know it's just another wrong-headed mollycoddling theory."

Jonathan just rolled his eyes then focused his attention on the snow people who were moving closer with a strange, rolling gait on their black-galoshes clothed... feet?

"Dad, go around to the other side of the hall and make sure Travis is alright. And if you have a flame-thrower in the trunk of your limo, that'd be good."

Lionel looked apologetic. "Sorry, son. Martha Stewart took it out to make space for her AOL CDs and ribbons."

Clark sighed; they'd have to address that soon too. Inter-familial relations were always a bitch.

"Clark, now would be a good time for heat vision."

Nodding at his husband, Clark focused on a thought that made him hot. Lex in a silk dressing gown...

He could feel the heat flutter in his eyes before it went out. The green kryptonite was too strong.

"The kryptonite..."

Lex looked at him in concern then sighed. "Okay, brute force." Lex moved toward the fireplace and the snow people followed, mirroring his movements. Clark tried to remind himself that Lex had lot of mutant and krypto-creature experience as Lex picked up the fireplace poker and stuck it into the flames. The snow people just watched and inch by inch continued toward Lex.

Clark pondered where all the krypto-mutants and creatures had learned strategy as they formed a three point assault before one lunged for Lex as he pulled the red hot poker back out of the fire and put all his strength into a swing.

The swing took the point-snowman's head off cleanly. Thankfully, once the kryptonite was removed, the rest of the body just collapsed down upon itself with a wet splat sound. The red kryptonite had fallen off and Clark watched it slide under the sofa. The green kryptonite was still glowing in the snow and the mouth that looked like it had been made out of a half a potato was an 'O' of surprise.

The two remaining snow people were making a growling sound Jonathan moved quickly from Clark's side to grab an antique end table and as the snow woman started toward Lex, brought the table down like a battering ram onto her back. The snow woman was propelled forward, past Lex and into the fireplace. One tree branch arm stopped her from going in. She was melting from the front, water accumulating in front of the hearth, and Clark met his father's gaze at the plunking sounds as the coal buttons and the kryptonite eyes hit the water. The rest of the body fell forward into the fireplace, dampening the flames slightly.

Lex reached over and grabbed the kryptonite from the hearth, shoving it into Jonathan's hand. "Put them in the lead box behind my desk," he said, never taking his eyes off the last snowman.

Jonathan ran over to the desk and threw the glowing stones into the box. Clark watched as his father used the fireplace tongs to remove the piece of green kryptonite from the first snowman's head, then wrangled the red piece from under the sofa. Clark felt his strength start to come back as soon as the meteorites were encased in the lead box.

"Dammit!" Clark turned at Lex's cry of annoyance. There was a long, deep looking scratch down on side of Lex's face, the remaining snowman looking pleased, or as pleased as a creature with two eyes made out of Krypton and a mouth of potato could look. Clark closed his eyes and thought happy, sexy thoughts for a few minutes then opened his eyes again.

The medieval harpsichord on the other side of the snowman burst into flames as the first hole appeared in the snow.

"The head, Clark, the head!" Lex shouted and Clark focused in again, the creature's head melting, the kryptonite falling onto the body and apparently freezing there.

Aww, crap.

The headless snowman continued to advance on Lex, who moved closer to the fireplace. Lex was twisting to the right when the door to the hall opened and Lionel appeared. He looked annoyed as the figured continued to advance on them.

"Haven't you finished with this yet... the harpsichord!!"

"Dad, kind of busy here," Lex ground out as he moved out of range of the tree branch arm again. Clark's strength was returning, still not quite all there with the two meteorites in the room, but he was just about to get up to rush the creature when a small furry blur ran into the room, hoof beats soft against the antique carpeting.

The snowman didn't see it coming when a small, hard head slammed into it, pushing it into the flames. Lex grabbed the tree branch before it could stop its fall, looking surprised as it popped out of the 'socket'.

The fire went out this time when the snow hit it, the melted snow gushing back onto the carpet. Lionel was howling for a fire extinguisher before Clark used his freezing breath to kill the flames on the harpsichord. Or what had been the harpsichord.

Lex was digging in the fireplace for the last two pieces of kryptonite. Clark knew instantly when they'd been put in the lead box, the pain ebbing away, leaving only strength.

"Sparky."

Clark looked up to see Lexine in the doorway, but his daughter's attention was on the little black and white goat that was lapping the melted snow up from the hearth.

Clark grabbed a handful of Kleenex and pulled Lex down onto the sofa, gently cleaning up the blood from the scratch. He took the tree branch from Lex's hand and threw it on the coffee table.

Lexine toddled over and climbed up into Lex's lap, giving him a kiss on his cheek to make it better.

"Bad Frosty."

Lex nodded kissed her back. "Yes, baby. Bad Frosty."

"Good Sparky."

Clark couldn't help the laughter; attacked by snowmen and saved by goats.

Lex sighed with complete resignation. "Yes, baby. Good Sparky."

Lexine's smile was beatifically Luthor. "Cookie?"