ethrosdemon ||| Smallville

Woolgathering
by ethrosdemon

Email: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Pairing: none
Improv: #2 deny, invent, white, shadow
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Smallville and all it's characters, plots and setting are owned by WB and other major, soul-sucking corporations.

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A cherry-picker hulks down Main Street stopping beside every street lamp. With each stop, it emits an anti-melodic warning bleep and extends its basket up to the height of the giant candy canes, bells and santas affixed to the lights. Lana watches the progression from her seat in the Beanery. She feels oddly wistful to see the decorations go, and not just because it means school will resume in a few days. More because it means Christmas is over, really over, and it's time to be mundane and not-so-full of cheer. The cherry-picker's shadow falls across her, and she pulls her sweater tighter against the loss of warmth provided by the watery, winter sunlight refracted through the plate glass.

She turns her book face down on her lap and follows Jimmy Burns' methodical loosening of the metal straps holding the gold, tinsel bell to the post. The lower half of his face is obscured by the bulky white and blue scarf doubled or tripled around his neck. Jordan Burns, one of Whitney's buddies, has an identical one in Crow's colors. Lana knows half the needy in the county have scarves like those, or hats or mitts, because Katie Burns knits them for the Lutheran charity drive every year. The scarf bunches and pulls as Jimmy undoes the last bolt on the bell.

Lana often wonders what its like to sit in a coffee shop and see nothing but strangers. To invent life stories for those strangers and not know every person you see and way too much about them. She tries to imagine Jimmy Burns' secrets as the cherry-picker lurches out of sight. Pictures him in a garter-belt and bra, or attempts to. She gets bogged down on how much body hair he should have and whether it's all gray or party-colored like the hair on his head. Just gives up on that one. She moves on to him sitting in a battered arm-chair drinking gin with three limes in it and listening to scratchy jazz recordings. This one she likes, so she adds to it: gives him a cigarette for the smoky atmosphere and puts a photo album on his lap. Black and white, square photos in one of those black, paper books that holds the pictures by the corner. Her inner eye zooms in on one, and there's a lithe woman wearing a head-band with a feather jutting out of it and a dress with several rows of fringe caught in mid- swing. Jimmy's mother, Lana fills in. Her records, too. She labels this scene: bitter-sweet. Lana figures Jimmy Burns has many other flavors, and she'll use him as a back up in her new game, when other people won't give her any good fake secrets, she'll use Jimmy and his mom.

She fingers the spine of her book and refocuses her eyes to find the chair opposite her occupied. Clark's hazel eyes shift off her face, and he rubs the palms of his hands against his jean-clad thighs.

"How long have you been here, Clark?" Her mouth turns up involuntarily.

"Not that long. I mean sitting here. I've been here, here, in the Beanery, a while." Girlish, pink mouth split in a nervous grin.

"Why didn't you say something?" She's glad he didn't, but Clark's so odd, she wants to hear what he says.

"You looked so caught up in your thoughts I didn't want to break in on that. I hate it when people talk to me when I'm thinking a really good thought, you know?" And his smile changes, becomes genuine, open, a sharing smile.

She can't deny him an answering one. "Thanks, that was sweet." His face flushes completely now, but it appears to be a pleased blush. And Lana suddenly decides Clark would listen intently to her recounting of Jimmy Burns' fake life. He wouldn't laugh or change the subject like Whitney. She knows this absolutely, with the kind of finality she has sometimes.

"The decorations coming down means the regular part of the year has started, you know what I mean?" Clark's looking out the window in the direction of the cherry-picker. He didn't know Lana'd drifted off again. And she thinks it wouldn't matter anyway, that he wouldn't mind her drifting in and out, that he seems to do the same thing, with his strange non-sequitors and bizarre comments.

"Yeah, I always felt the same way." She watches Clark turn back to face her, and his smile's gone. In its place is a sort of sad look, the same kind she knows she wears a lot of the time. Lana doesn't tell Clark about Jimmy Burns, but she somehow knows she will another day.



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