Lex frowned and turned slightly as he examined himself in the mirror. He reached down to his waist and pinched up a tiny bit of flesh.God, I'm getting flabby. I'll have to do something about this. Nip this in the bud. He finished dressing, and decided to take a walk around the grounds to relax his nerves and get in a bit of excersize. He wandered down to the dining room and headed for the French doors that led out to the terraced gardens. His phone rang just before he stepped out the doors.

" Hello, Clark, good to hear from you. Yes, it has been a while-sure; I'd love to have you over. I'll come get you and the others myself...oh. Are you sure? I've got some new movies in-oh no, no- just you is fine.Right.You/ will? Ok. Yes I'll wait for you- actually, I'll be walking around the rear garden, meet me in the back on the kitchen patio. Yeah, excersize. Of course to stay in shape-stop laughing. Why are you laughing-I'll see you when you get here." Lex disconnected as hard as one can disconnect a cell phone. That's what's wrong with them, no satisfying slam and went out.

As he made his way down the garden stair he caught sight of Hans Dieter coming out of the lower terrace, the kitchen garden. Lex took a moment to enjoy the order and beauty of the kitchen garden, and the separate herb garden. * I should give Yoshi a raise, he really does an excellent job with the gardens...* His thoughts derailed as he got a closer look at Hans Dieter. He found himself drawn to him like a hapless bit of metal to a large and threatening magnet. He stopped in front of the chef and froze.

Hans Dieter glared at Lex, which, yes, was his normal expression. What brought Lex to a full stop was the chef's outfit. For some reason, Dieter was wearing...flannel. A flannel shirt and a pair of frighteningly tight jeans. As Lex watched, to his horrified amazement, Hans Dieter...smiled. It was a slow distortion of his patrician face. His finely chiseled nose wrinkled and his arched nostril trembled. His wide brow was marred by his eyebrows drawing together, forcing up a line across the marble smooth expanse. His blue eyes were the shade of a stormy sky and their entire force was focused on Lex.And his cupid bow lips parted, the upper lip lifted in what was more a snarl than a show of bonhomie.

Lex gasped and recoiled.* What the fu...why was he growling at him? At least while they were clothed....* Dieter's smile was so blindingly white that Lex had to fight the instinct to close his eyes. He smiled back and tried to look calm and in control, then whirled around and sprinted down the path.

Hans Dieter watched him run and this time did growl. Herr Lex did not even comment on his flannel. Which, he had been assured by Sarah und Sophia, would turn him into a puddle of erotic goo at his feet, Und the Tooth Brite strips! A fortune wasted, the * Bastard*.

Lex breathed a little harder when he got to the end of the upper terrace. He almost ran into Yoshi, who was crouched down and trimming a bush of some kind. He took a moment to enjoy the sight of all that gleaming black hair, reminiscing about what fine reins it made, when Yoshi turned to face him.

The grin on the young man's face was arresting to say the least. His teeth were bared in a blinding grimace that would have done a saber-tooth proud. For a moment Lex was sure he meant to eat him (and not in good way.) He was startled anew to notice that Yoshi, who normally dressed only a tiny bit less fashionably then Lex (because * Yoshi* was not about to play in the dirt, that's what he had subordinates for) was wearing flannel. He backed away, keeping the weirdly grimacing man in sight till he could walk away swiftly.

Lex walked briskly towards the formal gardens. *Whatever had gotten into Yoshi? Plaid flannel? It's a wonder he didn't burst into flames at the touch of a common fabric against his skin. Tsk. Some people were so pretentious. * He saw the top of Conners' head moving along behind the formal hedges and let out a sigh of relief. Dieter and the others were official nut cases but Conners was, thank God, a shining beacon of sanity in this otherwise bizarre household. He started to call out to him as Conners came around the corner of the bushes. Conners saw Lex, smiled slightly and revealed a tiny glimpse of bright teeth. And a flannel shirt.

Lex staggered.

The world flipped on its axis.

What Conners had done was basically the equivalent of maniacal laughter in anyone else. Conners did not ever expose his teeth when he smiled. Lex and the rest of the staff had speculated as to why in random moments when they were too exhausted to do more than talk. They eventually decided that Conners felt that while smiling was acceptable, grinning was beneath him.

Conners' frightening smile wow, really sexy teeth, though the horror of his staff turned out in flannel...It was too much. Lex spun on his heel and raced towards the garage. He had to get out of there now! Before whatever meteoric madness that had overtaken his staff attacked him, too.

Lex leaned against the wall, puffing and a little sweaty from his panicked run. He needed to warn Clark not to come. As he fumbled at his pocket trying to get to his phone, he spied Henri, coming toward him in all his flannelled glory. (Strangely on Henri, it looked natural...rather attractive, even.) Lex raised his hands and closed his eyes to protect himself from what he assumed would be another blinding grin, so only heard the impact of flesh hitting flesh and Henri's yelp of pain. He felt hard arms scoop him up and he opened his eyes to find a pair of hazel ones locked onto his.

Clark looked mightily pissed off.

" Lex! Have you seen your staff!" Lex wanted to tell him he was fully aware of the insanity that was his staff but Clark yelled right over anything he might have said.

"Lex, that's it! I've had it with this shit! No more damn supervised 'play dates'. No more acting like 'we're just friends', and no more fucking the staff!"

Lex figured at some point during the day, he'd died, and he was in heaven, or hell, hard to tell...and suddenly Clark kissed him .Big, wet, sloppy and no finesse at all.

Clark kissed him.

Oh, God.

Heaven, definitely heaven.