This is for SymbolicAngel. While I know she didn't request a Christmas story, I couldn't help myself since it seemed to fit in so well with the items she did request. Special thanks to my beta reader--Laura, you rock! Also a nod to my inspirations 
: RoseMary, who cannot play with her friends without breaking something; Trinity, who has made returning a stolen item in such a way as to leave the recipient scrambling into an art form; and DJ, who loves it when Clark gives the boyscout salute. I hope you like this, SymbolicAngel. 
Lois frowned as she shoved the phone message onto her partner’s desk. What did she look like, anyway--Clark's social secretary? Yes, she had answered his phone for him, but that was only because she was hoping to get a call back from his source in Detroit. She would have let the phone ring itself silly if she had known it was Mayson Drake on the line.
“Do you know when he’ll be back,” Mayson had wheezed in that baritone voice that she probably thought was sultry and sexy, but which instead sounded like she was addicted to Marlboro Lights.
“I don’t keep tabs on the man,” Lois had sniped, rather annoyed that she didn’t know where he was and when he would be back.
Still, she had grudgingly taken another phone message, all the while wondering when the terminally blonde attorney would get a clue and realize that Clark wasn’t really interested in her. Ever since he been shot down by gangsters and come back from the dead, Mayson had been running after him like a vagrant dog looking for handouts. Pitiful!
“Good morning, Lois,” Clark called out to her, interrupting her mental tirade.
“Where were you?” she demanded to know, crossing her arms across her chest and wrinkling her forehead in annoyance.
He was clearly taken aback by her attitude. His eyebrows shot toward his hairline as he explained, “I was out front talking to Santa.”
“Of course you were,” she answered in a tone of voice that lacked understanding.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he inquired oh-so-innocently.
“It’s just that I’m in here doing the job and holding down the fort, while you’re out there playing Christmas and fa-la-la-la-la-ing.”
“You have something against Christmas? Or is it just me?”
She pulled out his chair and slumped into it. “It’s not you,” she confessed in a quieter tone.
“So what’s wrong with Christmas,” he pressed in a patient manner would make the average psychiatrist green with envy.
“There’s nothing wrong with Christmas,” she huffed. “Christmas is fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Yes, it’s a fine holiday--like Independence Day or Arbor Day. At least, it would be fine if it didn’t have so much glitz and so many garlands
and cookies
and lights
and the last-minute shopping, the trees, the Christmas specials, the music piped in from Halloween until death do us part… It’s just a little bit much, don’t you think?”
He paused for a beat, absorbing the tirade thoughtfully before answering quietly. “I think you need to switch to decaf. Does this mean you don’t want to go tree shopping with me later on?”
She sighed. “No, I’m still planning on getting a tree. It’s just that I’m tired of having Madison Avenue knocking me to the ground and shoving the commercial Christmas down my throat. I simply want Christmas to be what
I want it to be.”
His hand rubbed her back reassuringly. “Well, all right then. We’ll make it the perfect Christmas, Lois-Lane style.”
“Space Rats!” Perry bellowed in their general direction.
“Gesundheit?” Lois calmly answered him.
“I want you two to look into Atomic Space Rats.”
“A toy? Oh, Perry,” she grumbled. “I was just finishing up the piece on the drowning in Congressman Taft’s swimming pool.”
“An eighty-four-year old woman just knocked the dentures out of another woman so she could buy the last toy in the store,” Perry informed her, a grin spreading across his features.
“We’re on it,” Lois promised him, rushing for her coat. “Jimmy, come on! We’re going to need pictures!” She waited until she was inside the elevator before donning her hat and scarf.
~*~
It was a different Lois Lane that emerged from the elevator two hours later. It had taken only one whiff of the odiferous mist that sprayed from the front of an Atomic Space Rat to change her from a professional businesswoman into someone greedy and childish. Of course, being Lois Lane, she hadn’t stopped at just one whiff, but had pumped dose after dose into her system.
“They’re all mine,” she bragged to Clark and Jimmy as she skipped down the landing, hugging the three toys to her chest to protect them from grabbing hands. “They’re my Rats, and you can’t have any.”
Her partner sighed. “It was kind of funny at the toy store, not so funny in the cab and it’s getting old about now. We’re on a deadline. Can I look at the Rat? Please?”
“You just want to take it!” she accused him.
“I just want to write the story,” he countered. He paused to tiredly wave at the guest sitting in front of his desk. “Hi, Mayson.”
Mayson sauntered over to his side. Her gaze passed from Clark to Lois’ juvenile behavior and back. “What’s with the toy?”
“It’s for a story Lois and I are supposed to be working on,” Clark explained, before stressing the last word, “
together.”
“Fine. You want a look? You can have one,” Lois decided, “if you promise to look and not touch.”
Clark held up three fingers in a Scout’s salute. “I promise.”
“Okay.” She crossed the room to where Clark, Jimmy and Mayson waited, before letting loose with a foul, well-aimed spray. Clark and Jimmy gasped at the fetid smell. “And a double phooey for you!” Lois laughed as she thoroughly doused Mayson and her silk blouse. Then, Lois turned and ran for cover.
“That’s gross!” Jimmy protested.
“Yeah,” Clark agreed, “but I like it.”
“Me, too,” Jimmy chimed in.
“I want one of those Rats,” Clark declared, taking off after the toys that Lois was hiding.
“Me, too,” Jimmy decided, hot on his friend’s heels. “I want one of everything!”
“Ladies first,” Mayson reminded them, pushing Jimmy to the side in hot pursuit of an atomic toy.
Lois was able to keep the rats, but only because she was on the other side of the candy dish. Jimmy shoved M and M’s into his mouth hand over fist while Clark practically inhaled the Reese’s Pieces, letting a satisfying burp rip to echo across the newsroom.
“Boys are disgusting,” Mayson stated.
“Girls are sissies!” Jimmy countered.
“At least girls wash their hands before they eat.”
“You go ahead and wash your hands,” Clark suggested. “I’ll eat your share while you’re at the sink.”
Jimmy laughed and punched his friend on the arm. “Good one, CK!” Clark reached a hand for the M and M’s while his buddy chuckled, but Jimmy reflexively guarded the jar under his arm in response.
~*~
It was the systematic thumping that got Perry’s attention. There was a long scratching sound followed by a thump, a whoosh and a bam. Then, it repeated itself.
“You broke it!”
“Nuh uh! You broke it last time! I just jiggled it enough that you could see the already broken part better.”
He followed the source of the sound to the conference room door, where he found Jimmy and Lois atop the tables.
“What in the Sam Hill is going on here?” he roared.
“I didn’t do it,” came the chorused response.
“Didn’t do what?” he demanded. His face reddened as his blood pressure shot up.
“It was Lois’ idea.”
“Not all of it,” she protested. “You’re the one who put the tables together to make a better runway. And… and… you’re the one who brought the door from the supply cabinet so we could have a ramp down.”
“But you’re the one who broke the vent!”
“No, you did that!”
“You did it!”
“Liar!”
Perry whistled to break up the squabble. “What made these scratch marks on the table?” he demanded to know.
Lois ducked her head.
Jimmy blushed. “The wheelie chairs,” he mumbled.
“The wheelie chairs?”
Jimmy forgot his shame in his enthusiasm to share their cool set-up. “Yeah, Lois wanted to see who could jump the farthest so we set up this cool runway. You see? And when you get to the end of the table you jump off the chair and hit the ceiling tile. It’s really fun. And it works great, too, except that I split my pants. See? And Lois broke the vent for the air conditioner.”
“Did not!”
“Lois?” Perry brought her up short in a no-nonsense tone of voice normally reserved for parents and school teachers. “You go to my office and think about your behavior.”
“But-”
“No ‘buts,’” Perry insisted.
He watched her with a firm set to his jaw until she dragged herself toward his office, grumbling, “Like that’s really fair.”
“Jimmy?”
He hung his head. “Yes, sir.”
“I want you to fix this table and that ceiling vent. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It had better look just as nice as it did yesterday. Are we clear on that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Perry shook his head on the way back to his office. He paused outside the door, wondering if it was too soon to go inside. Lois might need a few extra minutes to get her wits about her. He hadn’t seen her this worked up since that pheromone incident last year.
His decision was made up for him, as she stuck her head out of the office door. “The stuffed shirts on the fifth floor want you in Legal, Perry.”
He hesitated for only a moment before heading across the bullpen, muttering.
She waited until the elevator doors shut before darting out of his office. She might only have a few moments to make her escape before he uncovered her ruse.
She hurried over to where Clark was munching red and green M and M’s at his desk. “Come on. Let’s go,” she urged.
“Clark’s talking to me,” Mayson protested.
“But I want Clark,” Lois insisted.
“You’re interrupting. Haven’t you ever heard of taking turns?”
“He’s my friend, and I want him,” Lois persisted.
“You’re not going to get him. He’s mine!”
“He was mine first,” Lois argued.
“I’ll ‘rock, paper, scissors’ you for him,” Mayson suggested.
“You’re on!” Lois agreed. They shook their fists to the count of three. Lois crowed as her rock crushed Mayson’s scissors.
“You cheated,” Mayson insisted. “You were making paper until you saw my scissors.”
“No way! I won fair and square.”
“Two out of three.”
“You’re a sore loser,” Lois accused.
“And you’re a cheater,” Mayson countered.
“I won. I can win at any game you want to play, Mayson, because I’m better than you.”
“How about arm wrestling?”
“Fine, but it’s not because I didn’t win the first time.”
She pushed Clark out of his chair and shoved his work onto the floor to make enough room for the contest. He protested feebly, but only because he was worried about the candies. The girls locked eyes and shifted in their seats as they readied themselves.
The match didn’t last long. Lois won again.
Mayson frowned, springing from the office chair in a huff. She hurried to Lois’ desk and grabbed the pile of toys.
“My Rats!” Lois cried. She ran across the room with her arms outstretched, looking for any opening she might find to snatch them back.
“You can have your stupid toys,” Mayson offered, “but I get Clark.”
“You can have him! My Rats!” She jumped in an effort to steal the toys back from the taller blonde. Mayson threw the toys over Lois’ shoulder with a taunting laugh. She turned back to Clark as Lois scuffled across the floor to gather her things.
“Let’s go someplace, Clark,” Mayson proposed.
He wrinkled his nose in response. “I don’t wanna.”
“But you have to. I bought you.”
“Girls are stupid,” Clark told her, as if that explained everything.
~*~
“That woman cut us off,” Jonathan accused as he emerged from the elevator. He excused himself, tilting his packages sideways to edge through the crowd.
“Oh, she did not.” His wife chuckled at him as she followed him through the throng at the top of the landing. “She was just in a hurry and didn’t see us.”
“She was a human knife, Martha. This is why I hate to do my Christmas shopping in Metropolis. People are so rude: shoving, grabbing, pushing, hurrying… This town is crazy.”
Martha’s smile never wavered as she weathered his tirade. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Seeing the large stack of packages they were carrying, all wrapped in glistening paper and covered with bows and tags, Mayson couldn’t help herself. She ran to the top of the ramp, snatching a few choice gifts from the top of the heap. “Oh, are these for me?” she exclaimed. “There are so many. They’re so pretty; I don’t know which one to choose.” She raced off to open her bounty.
Jonathan was stunned. “Who was that?” he wondered aloud.
Martha froze, slack-jawed. “I have no idea.”
Pushing his way through the mass of people in the bullpen, Perry hurried to help. But Clark beat him to the punch, racing over to help them with the rest of the pile.
“Did you save any for me?” their son worried. His countenance lightened as he had a sudden thought. “Did you get me any Space Rats? Lois has all the Rats, and I really want one. Can I get one? Can I? Huh? Huh?”
“They’re mine! They’re all mine!” she taunted from across the room.
“I could get one if I really wanted one,” he informed her. He shoved the presents onto his desk and crossed his arms defensively.
“You go ahead and try it. I’ll kick your butt.” She turned on her heel and pranced back toward her desk, cooing at her Space Rats as she walked.
Clark frowned. He lowered his glasses and aimed a shot of heat-vision at the back of Lois’ high-heeled boots. She screeched as her feet went out from under her. The Space Rats went flying through the air as Lois splayed across the floor. Clark crowed, laughing and clapping his hands in a victory dance.
Perry’s jaw dropped. Had he just seen what he thought he had seen? Apparently he had, since Martha Kent appeared to go on the warpath.
“Clark Jerome Kent!” she thundered. “You get over here right now, young man.”
Clark’s face was the image of innocence. “What? What’d I do?”
“You know exactly what you did, young man. I am so angry with you right now; I don’t know what to do.”
“Aw, Mom,” he fussed.
Jonathan took the two of them by the elbows, steering toward the privacy of the conference room. He hustled his family inside, closing the door behind them, leaving a stunned Perry White outside struggling to understand the implications of what he had just seen.
Inside the conference room, the sounds of sobbing could be heard from the back corner.
“Jimmy?” At the sound of Jonathan’s gentle voice, Jimmy ducked his head and swiped at his eyes with the back of his fist. “Is something wrong?”
“I can’t do it,” Jimmy stated. His lips quivered, warning that another round of sobs was barely being held in check. “I fixed the vent, but I… I… I can’t fix the table.” He bowed his head as the tears ran unhindered down his cheeks. “It’s just particle board with a little veneer on top and it scratched all the way through. There’s two big holes, and I can’t get the wood back inside.”
Jonathan ran a hand over the young man’s shoulders. Jimmy threw himself into Jonathan’s solid chest. Jonathan’s arms closed reflexively, hugging the boy until the plaid of his shirt was a sodden mess of tears and mucus.
“Why don’t you go wash your face, and I’ll have a look at it while you’re gone,” Jonathan suggested when Jimmy appeared to have regained a sense of control.
“Okay,” Jimmy agreed, moping out the door.
“My dad can fix anything,” Clark promised him, bringing a smile to his friend’s face before he left the room. Clark headed out the door himself, but his mother jerked him back inside.
“Not so fast, young man.”
“But Mom,” he whined.
“Don’t ‘but Mom’ me. I saw what you did to Lois’ shoe,” Martha accused.
“She deserved it,” Clark declared, narrowing his eyes until his entire face frowned. “She thinks she’s so smart since she has all the Space Rats and the rest of us don’t have any. She ain’t nuthin’. She’s just an old poopyhead.”
“Go to your room,” Jonathan ordered automatically.
Clark laughed at his dad’s mistake. “I think I will.” He jerked the door open, but leaned back inside for a parting remark. “You know, you’re not the boss of me anymore.”
“Why you little…” Martha stormed after her naughty son.
“Let him go,” Jonathan instructed. “Give him a chance to cool off. He’s obviously not feeling himself today--none of them are.”
“You’re right,” his wife agreed. “We’ve got to figure out what going on here. You don’t suppose it has anything to do with those toys, do you? They all seem awfully fixated on them.”
“Well, since Lois and Clark are obviously out of commission, I suppose it’s up to us to find out. Come on.”
~*~
Clark frowned as he glanced over his shoulder. Mayson was still tagging along behind him. She’d been following him ever since he left the newsroom. Girls could be annoying like that.
He pulled his keys from his pocket, trying to slip inside before she caught up.
“I’m coming, too,” she called after him.
“Nuh uh,” he told her.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“You’ll get girl germs in my living room. No girls allowed.”
“But that’s not fair,” she argued.
“Is so fair. It’s my place, and I say no girls allowed.” He stomped his foot impertinently.
“Besides, I have plans.”
“What plans?” she asked, obviously not believing him.
“I’m going to go tree shopping with Lois, and you can’t come because I’m not getting a tree for you.”
“I don’t want your stupid tree anyway,” she told him, clomping back down the steps toward the alley. “I got my own tree and it’s much prettier than yours.”
“It’s much prettier than yours,” he mimicked, closing the door behind him. “Who does she think she is? Girls are so stupid.”
He sat down on his couch with some Ding Dongs and a cream soda to watch Tom and Jerry.
~*~
He hung up the phone with a sigh and a shrug. Lois was sure bent out of shape. He was only a few hours late to pick her up, but she acted like it was a federal crisis. He donned his coat and grabbed some Twinkies for the walk over to her apartment.
As he opened the door, he glanced into the sky. It was really dark and awfully late. If the lights at the tree lot weren’t working properly, it might be getting too late to shop for a tree at all. He spun into his suit and flew to Lois’ apartment.
For a girl who was all fired up and ready to go, she was certainly surprised to see him.
“How’d you get here so fast?” she asked as she closed the door behind him, securing the multitude of locks.
“Like this,” he told her. He rushed at Superspeed around the four corners of the room, leaving a gusting wind in his wake.
“Awesome! That was just like Superman.”
Clark rolled his eyes. “I am Superman.”
“Cool!” Lois gushed. “Could you fly me somewhere?” She hurried to the window and threw it open, invitingly.
“I don’t want to go flying with you. Your breath smells like garlic.”
“Come on, Clark. I’ll give you my Space Rats.” He considered the idea and spun into his Supersuit. She settled into his arms with a grin, and he flew her out of the window.
“You can have the Space Rats tonight,” she whispered her clarification, “but I want them back in the morning.”
“Aw, Lois,” he grumbled.
“Okay, you can keep the Rats,” she decided, “but only because you’re my best friend.”
“You’re my pal, too, Lois.”
“Pinkie promise?”
“Pinkie promise,” he solemnly vowed.
They flew off past the trees and into the land of the stars.
SymbolicAngel requested:
Three things I want in my fic:
1. Revelation (Lois finds out)
2. Perry finds out before Lois does
3. Mayson
Preferred season(s): S2
Three things I do not want in my fic:
1. Lois getting angry when she finds out the secret.
2. Lex Luthor
3. Strong A-Plot
