Title: Friday Night Conversations
Author: Slythhearted
Rated: Pg13
Spoliers: None really
Disclaimer: All things Smallville belong to DC Comics, the WB, et al.
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Lex Luthor pushed open the doors of the Talon and casually scanned the Friday night crowd for a friendly face. He had given Lana the weekend off to visit Nell in Metropolis and was able to excuse his presence as checking up on his investment during her absence, not because he was bored, and certainly not because he was emotionally drained after a day spent manoeuvring to protect LexCorp from his father. The coffee shop was predictably packed; unless there was a party organised the younger residents of Smallville didn’t have a lot of options when it came to hanging out. Lex noticed an empty space towards the back. Moving through the crowd he realised that the area wasn’t so much ignored as avoided. Chloe Sullivan was muttering into her latte as she viciously stabbed at the piece of pie in front of her. Over the last few years the young reporter had moved from friend of a friend, and occasional verbal opponent to someone whom he felt comfortable relaxing around. Even so, Lex debated with himself over the wisdom of willingly taking on a pissed off Chloe before finally slipping into the chair opposite her.
“Chloe,” he said by way of greeting.
She glanced up briefly to nod in acknowledgment before returning her attention to brutalising the slice of pie. Lex watched silently for a few minutes as the dessert was mashed into an unappetizing paste. Managing to keep a smile off his face he gently baited her, “I take it your evening didn’t work out quite how you planned.”
Chloe’s mouth twisted into an expression of distaste.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk as in meaningful conversation? Or talk as in you sit back and let me rant about the injustice of being me? Because I am several hundred calories away from agreeing to the first,” Chloe challenged.
Lex smirked at her bluntness, listening to a Chloe rant would at the very least distract him from his own problems. “Go ahead.”
Chloe groaned, “God it was a disaster from start to finish. I made the mistake of complaining to Lana in the cafeteria that my Dad was going away, and that rather than this presenting a perfect opportunity for unsupervised fun, she was deserting me for the bright lights of Metropolis and Clark and Pete were equally tied up. Next thing I know this relatively harmless jock is asking me out on a date.”
Lex choked slightly on his coffee. “A jock asked you out?”
“You needn’t sound so shocked. I’m not completely repulsive,” Chloe snarled defensively.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Lex backtracked. “From what I have seen I wasn’t expecting one of them to demonstrate such good taste.”
Chloe looked at him suspiciously, not entirely convinced at his explanation. “Well it turned out Andrew and I had vastly different ideas about tonight’s activities.”
“He expected you to smile sweetly while he regaled you with tales of his sporting prowess?”
Chloe laughed at Lex’s disgusted expression. “You know that would actually have been preferable. I could have zoned out and mentally planned out the next edition of the Torch. But Mr high school stud apparently thought that with my Dad away I could forgo the ‘getting to know you stage’ and jump straight to the ‘let’s get naked bit.”
“He what?” Lex forced himself to relax as he gripped his cup of coffee.
Chloe ignored the interruption. “I mean, I haven’t been asked out in, god it’s too depressing to think about how long it’s been, and when I do finally find someone to spend a Friday night with and he turns out to be a hormonally charged octopus.” Chloe grinned. “The only plus side to whole night was that he wasn’t trying to kill me, which actually made it an improvement on my last few dates.”
Lex was having a hard time fighting down the surge of anger at the thought of Chloe being put in that situation. “Who was he?”
Chloe snorted “What? So you can go and defend my honour?”
“I don’t like people hurting my friends.”
Chloe looked at him in surprise at being classed as his friend. “That’s sweet Lex. But you don’t need to worry. When he didn’t seem to understand ‘no’ I was a little more direct. Mr Grabby Hands met my friend Ms Pepper Spray and I bailed. And so here I am alone on a Friday night… again. My life sucks.”
Lex smiled at her deliberate pout. He shouldn’t be too surprised that Chloe was shrugging off the experience as she had rightly pointed out this would go down as one of her less eventful forays into the Smallville dating scene. He had the briefly uncharitable thought that Lana would not have handled the situation with such aplomb. Flicking his fingers at the plate in front of her he teased, “So you decided to take your frustration out on a poor defenceless piece of pie?”
Chloe blushed slightly when she looked down at the paste that had started out liife as golden pastry and sweetened apples. She quirked her trademark grin “What can I say? I really wanted something chocolate but they sold the last brownie five minutes before I got here.”
“Poor Chloe, it really wasn’t your night.”
“Yes, yes let’s all mock Chloe when she’s down.” When Lex just laughed at her Chloe decided it was high time to turn the conversation away from her. “So Mr Billionaire playboy what are you doing alone on a Friday night?”
“Well I was working”
“And then?”
“I got bored. Came into town looking for a distraction.”
Chloe snorted, “Good Luck.”
Lex continued, ignoring the interruption “And what do I find? My favourite investigative journalist all alone and crying into her coffee.”
“Hey! I was not crying.”
“A slight exaggeration, perhaps.”
“The abuse I am suffering tonight, just doesn’t stop,” Chloe complained fighting to keep herself from grinning back.
“Will you let me make it up to you?”
“It depends what you have in mind.”
“Well since neither of us have any firm plans, how about we head back and see what my chef can whip up in the way of chocolate consolation food. And to prove how sorry I am I’ll even let you pick a DVD to watch.”
“Lex Luthor you are a man after my own heart.”
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Lex opened the door to his private den. “Why don’t you go in and choose what you want to watch,” he offered, “and I’ll tell the chef you are in the mood for something chocolate.”
“You’re voluntarily leaving me alone in your house. Who are you and what have you done with Lex Luthor?”
Lex didn’t bother to hide his smirk, “Yes, well I called ahead and had security lock away my detailed plans for world domination.” Laughing softly at her disgruntled expression Lex left her alone.
Chloe frowned slightly at the door. She wouldn’t deliberately invade the privacy of a friend; she did have some boundaries. Oh who was she kidding, past experience showed she only recognised those boundaries once she was long over them. However, she wasn’t going to give Mr Lex Luthor the pleasure of admitting that. But on the other hand he had left her alone and he had told her to choose what movie she wanted. With no fluorescent lights or red arrows proclaiming: “Movie collection kept here” she’d have to look around the room a bit. It was a lot homier than she was expecting. Yes the leather couch probably cost more than her Dad’s car and the chess set looked like it belonged in a museum but it was still a lot more relaxed than what little of the house she had seen. Chloe trailed her hands along the back of the couch deciding her best bet for finding the elusive DVD collection would be the closed wooden cabinets along the opposite wall. Folding back the doors she felt her jaw drop in shock. Knowing Lex she’d expected a reasonable collection but certainly not what appeared to be thousands of boxed movies. There was no way one person could watch all of these.
“Decided yet?”
Chloe let out a startled gasp. “Geez Lex are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she demanded before noticing the large bowl of popcorn he held. Any annoyance she felt at being snuck up on disappeared at the sight. “I see you know the rules,” she commented happily.
“Rules?”
“The Friday Night Movie Rules, whereby no entertainment session is complete without hot buttered popcorn and, at some point in the evening, chocolate. It’s actually written down somewhere,” Chloe explained, munching on a handful of popcorn.
“I’ll have to take your word for it as I don’t think I have read that particular work. If it’s any consolation when I left the kitchen Maria had started already started sifting ingredients for her famous double chocolate brownie and promised to bring it through when it is cooked. “
Chloe tried not to gape at him. “She’s making me a brownie from scratch?”
Lex shrugged, “That was what you were after at the Talon wasn’t it?”
“Well yes, but I didn’t think she’d go to the trouble of baking me something. I was thinking chocolate biscuits or something out of a packet maybe.”
“Chloe relax, cooking is Maria’s job.” Changing the subject Lex asked, “Have you decided what you want to watch?”
“I’m slightly spoiled for choice here, Lex. What, do you have every movie ever made?”
“Not quite. Both LuthorCorp and LexCorp have interests in the entertainment industry. I get copies sent to me as a matter of courtesy.”
“Nice perk.”
“Well it does come in useful when I need to rescue a friend’s Friday night. What are in the mood for, comedy, drama, horror, educational documentary?”
Chloe tilted her head and stared at the shelves of movies. “After the night I’ve had I want something funny.”
“Define funny. Are we talking Jim Carrey talking out his butt funny? Schlock horror funny or Mariah Carey believing she can act funny? Or-” Lex broke off as Chloe squealed and grabbed a box from his favourite section.
Chloe knew her cheeks would start hurting if she didn’t stop grinning but she couldn’t help herself as she clutched the complete Blackadder series to her chest. “Have you any idea how long it’s been since I’ve watched this?” she said.
“A closet Brit Comedy fan I take it,” Lex smirked. “Once again Miss Sullivan, you mange to surprise me.”
“Not entirely closet. I did try and introduce the others to Monty Python but…”
“They didn’t get it?”
Chloe laughed in memory, “Not at all. They sat there looking at me as if I was the latest freak of the week as I laughed my ass off. Of course the fact I started laughing before the funny bits started just because I knew what was coming didn’t help matters.”
Lex found himself smiling as he imagined Clark or Lana seeing Python for the first time. “I can see how that might have confused them.”
Without thinking, Chloe grabbed Lex’s hand and dragged him over to the couch. Tucking her feet up she settled herself down into the corner of the couch.
Lex couldn’t help but be caught up in her enthusiasm. “So do you want to watch a particular episode or just start at number one and work our way through?”
Chloe was tempted, it had been years since she had last seen the series and the chance of watching them all again in the company of someone who recognised good comedy was very tempting, but… “There’s no way we’ll get through all of them tonight. I’ll be asleep by the time we hit series three.”
“So we watch the first two series tonight and you come back tomorrow night to watch the rest with me,” Lex countered.
Chloe put a hand to her chest in mock surprise. “Lex Luthor without plans on a Friday night was surprising enough, but you expect me to believe that America’s most eligible bachelor doesn’t have a date for Saturday night?”
Lex got up from the couch and popped the first disk into the DVD player. Task accomplished he reached into his pocket for his cell phone. Dialling a number from memory he spoke, “Michelle, it’s Lex. Sorry for the late notice but I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make it. Something has come up.” Resuming his position on the couch he looked at her steadily. “There you go. I’m all yours.”
Fighting down very inappropriate thoughts to be having about her father’s boss, Chloe unleashed a mega watt smile. “Careful Luthor. You’ve rescued me from a tragic Friday night, offered me chocolate and are fulfilling my Brit TV addiction. Keep on like that and I might just keep you.”
Lex smiled at her finding himself very comfortable with the thought. Starting the DVD he made a mental note to point out the complete Python and Red Dwarf sets to her tomorrow night. He had a feeling that his Friday nights were about to become a lot more enjoyable.
End Fic.
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This is a really nice fic...
:chlexsign4: 
I loved it
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