It was quiet in the mansion. Eerily quiet.

Clark knew perfectly well that Lex liked to turn out all the lights and pretend to be elsewhere on Halloween, but this was ridiculous. It was pitch-black inside and only the saving grace of x-ray vision prevented Clark from taking a spill on the long journey of exploration.

"Lex, children are not this scary!" Clark shouted, but he couldn't hold back a grin. It was so good to be here again, to be joking with Lex again, even if the jokes were being shouted across the inky black corridors of a seemingly empty mansion. "Come on, you said you would be here tonight!" Clark added impatiently as he blinked and tripped over a bump in the carpet.

The sound of knocking and childish shouts of "Trick or treat!" echoed down from the front entrance. Clark considered going back, but decided that no good could possibly come of it -- even if he managed to get back to the door unscathed, it would only be to face a group of children and tell them they were leaving empty-handed.

"Does the Grinch hate Halloween, too?" Clark asked of a painted figure in a portrait beside him.

The next turning brought Clark in view of a doorway that was framed with light. "Lex?" he called, pacing more confidently now, heading for the door.

There was no answer, but when Clark quickly scanned the room, he saw that someone was occupying the space, so he twisted the knob and walked in.

Lex was nowhere to be seen, at least not until Clark blinked into x-ray mode again.

"You're, what, going as a gay man?" Clark asked, laughing, because Lex was --

Well. In the closet.

Clark watched the skeleton jump at the sound of his voice, then go very still, hands moving as though to adjust clothing. The action reminded Clark of his own costume, and he briefly glanced down to see that his accoutrements were in good order.

"Coming out anytime soon?" Clark called, growing impatient again. "Lex, I know you're there."

The skeleton's shoulders heaved and Clark's ears picked up the faint sigh of resignation. The closet's doorknob turned.

Lex was wearing something shiny and purple and really really tight.

Clark gaped.

"Don't even start," Lex snarled, but Clark was not even close to the end of his shock stage. Hysterical laughter was only a dim shadow on the horizon of his thought process.

"You're -- Warrior Angel," Clark said, slowly.

"Don't even," Lex said, adjusting his mask.

He was wearing a mask.

Hysterical laughter suddenly jumped a few seconds closer. Clark bit his lower lip, hard. It didn't hurt, of course, but it gave his mouth something else to do.

Lex's eyes weren't too easily seen under the mask, but they seemed to be narrowed into a dangerously pointed glare.

Lex had wings.

Clark lost the battle with his mouth and collapsed onto the carpet, laughing so hard, he wondered if it was actually possible to laugh his ass off.

Somewhere, under the struggle for oxygen and the eternally hilarious fact that Lex had wings, Clark thought Lex might be trying to explain himself. He caught the words 'party', 'mistake', 'last-minute', and 'tights', but everything else was submerged in Clark's giggling. Every time Clark got himself under control again, he'd look up and notice something else about Lex's apparel, and it would start anew.

He had purple leather boots.

And matching gloves.

Oh, and oh, christ, he was wearing a utility belt.

Clark only knew that Lex had turned around and was heading out of the room when he looked up to discover that Warrior Angel's tight little superbriefs were riding up. "Lex, wait!" Clark gasped. "Just wait."

Lex stopped in the doorway, but he didn't turn around, so Clark forced himself to look away from the superwedgie. "You still want to go to the Talon?" Clark asked, managing a sitting position by keeping his eyes fixed on the boots.

"What do you think?" Lex asked testily, swinging around. "The box said Devilicus, Clark! Devilicus doesn't wear tights!"

Boots. Look at the boots, Clark reminded himself firmly. "We can't miss the party, Lex -- it's Mom's first time doing something like this at the Talon. She'd be upset if we didn't go."

Lex's right boot stamped. It actually stamped, like Lex was wearing a five-year old girl's patent leather Mary Janes, not knee-high purple suede boots. "I think she'd be traumatized if I showed up like this," Lex returned. "Jesus, Clark, look at these -- panties! I look like a go-go dancer at MetroNation."

Clark unthinkingly obeyed, and was immediately struck by the untimely revelation that Lex was very well-equipped for that particular vocation. "They're aerodynamic," Clark suggested. "For the -- wings." His voice squeaked over the last word, but Clark managed to keep himself from resuming hysterics by biting the inside of his cheek.

Lex pulled the mask off, making a disgusted noise. "I have to at least make an appearance," he complained. "But there's no time to make another costume and this is downright indecent."

"There must be something else you can wear," Clark said desperately, clambering to his feet and tripping over his peg-leg in the process. "Do you have, like, a butler's outfit or something?"

Lex just frowned at Clark. "I can't go as a butler, Clark. Jesus. All the people in this town already think I'm a rich bastard."

"Do you have a bathrobe? You could be Hugh Heffner," Clark tried, but Lex only sighed heavily. "Do you have white pants?" In response to Lex's questioning eyebrow quirk, Clark explained. "Mr. Clean. Or! Dr. Evil! Do you have --"

Lex's scowl shut Clark up before he could suggest Daddy Warbucks.

Clark thought some more. "A sheet? You could be a ghost. Or you could wear it as a toga."

"I have to look like I made an effort," Lex said, shaking his head. He looked up at Clark then, and suddenly his gaze sharpened. "Or --"

"No."

"Oh, come on, Clark," Lex grinned.

"If those superpants are too small on you, how do you think they'll look on me?" Clark protested, but it was no use -- from the gleam in Lex's eye, Lex had already mentally stripped Clark of his billowy white shirt -- and not even in the good way. It was in the costume-stealing way.

"Arrr," Lex said, quietly, passing Clark his Warrior Angel mask. "Hand over that hook."

Clark pouted fiercely, but extended the hook towards Lex. "You owe me so much. I mean, I've saved your life like twenty times, and this is how you repay me?"

"You can keep the peg-leg," Lex conceded loftily. "With the hook, it'd be a bit of overkill, really." It was as though he hadn't heard a word Clark had said. Clark pouted some more. "You can use the closet to change," Lex offered brightly.

Clark rolled his eyes and pulled the pirate shirt over his head. "Can I at least go as a ghost?" he asked, throwing the top at Lex before tugging off his clip-on gold hoop earring.

"What, and let this great costume go to waste?" Lex asked, disbelieving. "Do you have any idea what the rental fee is on an authentic licensed Warrior Angel costume? This is the same kind they're using in the upcoming motion picture release, you know."

"Arrr," answered Clark, sadly parting ways with his eyepatch.

Mom was going to be so traumatized.

"Come on, Clark."

"No."

Clark was not supposed to be the one in the closet. Actually, if he had his way, neither he nor Lex would be spending any time in the closet at all, let alone closet-time involving purple suede and wings.

"We're going to be late."

"Does Warrior Angel ever wear sweatpants? You know, just around the house?"

The door burst open and Pirate Lex squinted at Clark with his good eye. Lex was nothing if not unpredictable -- he merely gave Clark a once-over and said, "Your utility belt is off-center."

Clark sighed. Lex could tell, no doubt, with a single glance, that Kryptonians didn't practice infant circumcision, and yet the noteworthy detail was the symmetry of Clark's stupid utility belt. "No sweats?" he asked wearily.

"Let's go," Lex said. He had managed to find an antique leather satchel somewhere that was doing duty as a pirate purse, because suddenly he had extracted keys and was walking out of the room.

The only way to keep the shorts from riding up Clark's butt was a slight hip shimmy, Clark discovered as he shimmied after Lex. Unfortunately, this also set his wings swaying. Clark felt like a giant retarded butterfly. Wearing spandex briefs.

The Talon was packed, which had its good side. It meant more people were around to witness Clark's humiliation, but on the other hand, it was that much easier to avoid direct contact with the people he wanted to avoid. Topping the list were Lana, Chloe, and his mom.

It was part of Clark's spectacular downturn in luck, he figured, that those three were standing in a tight little knot by the door when he and Lex walked in.

"Lex! You're a pirate!" Lana the ballerina laughed, her nose wrinkling in the way that meant 'how adorable!'

Clark could have been adorable. Instead he was going to be R-rated. And possibly sterile by the end of the night.

"I thought Clark was going to be--" began Cat-Chloe, but she stopped perforce when Clark's right wing slapped her face. Accidentally, of course.

Clark's mom seemed a little distracted, dressed in a Dorothy gingham dress, wielding a tray of orange cupcakes, but she froze when she recognized the purple retarded moth as her own child. A cupcake tumbled to its death when her gaze drifted lower. "Honey! What an -- authentic -- I mean. I thought you were going to -- oh, but Lex is wearing that. Well, sweetheart, you look --"

When Clark slouched, his wings hit him in the back of the head, so he had no choice but to stand up straight while his mother struggled to accept the revelation that her son was all grown up and covered in spandex.

Martha's eyes snapped back up to Clark's face, her expression shifting into sugary denial. "Have a cupcake, Clark," she said hastily, then bustled away.

"You know, I never thought of you as an exhibitionist," began Chloe, smiling pointily, but Clark hastily shifted, as though he was being jostled by passersby. His wing bapped Chloe again.

Lana was still looking at Lex, one finger twined in her gauzy pink tutu. "You need some rum to go with that get-up," she said in her Euro-sultry tone, the one she so hadn't declared with U.S. customs, because that voice was not homegrown. "Should I grab some punch?"

Lex smiled the brightest Colgate pirate smile of the century -- he had disdained Clark's offer to blacken one of his teeth, leaving Warrior Angel with a gap in his smile. "I can manage, thanks," he said. "Come on, Clark. Let's mingle."

Clark shimmied in Lex's wake and watched as his best friend the pirate chatted genially with the townspeople. He managed to snag one of his mom's drink trays and casually held it over his groin, resisting the urge to reach back and pick the purple spandex out of his butt. Martha avoided him like Lionel had set up camp in Clark's skin again, while Chloe kept trying to assault him from a direction out of the compass of Clark's wings. About twelve little boys ran up and kicked him to test his superpowers, all kindly taking the time to inform him that Warrior Angel didn't have 'stupid hair' like Clark's.

It lasted half an hour, but by the time Lex declared himself ready to depart, his eyepatch pushed up on his forehead, Clark felt decades older. Being a superhero was incredibly aging. Clark suspected that the utility belt was to blame.

"Are you catching a ride with your mom, or do you want a lift?" Lex asked.

"I think I'd better go back with you and trade costumes again," Clark replied, finally free to pick his butt at his leisure in the quiet Smallville street. "If my dad saw me in this I'd spend the rest of senior year in military school."

So they slipped back into the Porsche, the wings finally pulled off for the last time, and headed back to the mansion.

"Thank god that's over," Clark groaned, scratching at sweaty skin under his mask.

Lex didn't answer, only turned up the radio a little.

"If Chloe said one more thing about dance belts and six packs, I was just going to gag her with one of my gloves."

Lex flicked the top button of his shirt open.

"And Lana! You'd think she'd notice when I'm dressed up like a giant grape popsicle. But no, it's all about her pointe shoes and your bandana."

Lex cut a grin in Clark's direction, and for the first time since they'd changed costumes, Clark felt like Lex was actually looking at him.

"What?" Clark asked, strangely unsettled.

Lex shook his head, clearly dismissing whatever he'd been about to say.

"Lex, what?" Clark asked, even as he let himself notice the little sheen of perspiration in the open V of Lex's shirt.

Lex laughed under his breath. "It's just -- you have no idea how you look in that costume."

"I look like an eggplant with wings," Clark supplied gravely.

Lex laughed again, this time giving voice to his mirth.

"And a pe -- well. A boy eggplant," Clark amended.

They were just pulling into the mansion driveway. Lex shut off the ignition, and turned his head to smile at Clark. "You look like every gay little boy's wet-dream," he purred playfully.

It was supposed to be a tease, Clark knew that much, but he couldn't quite smile. Lex's eyes were too bright in the moonlight, his body too close in the next seat. "Maybe some grown men, too?" Clark asked, and still he couldn't smile.

Lex opened his mouth to answer, and Clark was sure, surer than he'd been about anything, that a kiss would follow.

Or, at least, a kiss would have followed if it hadn't been for the tap on the driver's side window.

Two robots and an alien were standing beside Lex's window, holding out pillowcases. "Trick or treat!" they squeaked gleefully, clearly well-pleased with themselves for having located the man of the mansion.

"Lex --" Clark began, sensing danger.

But Lex was already motioning the kids to back away so he could open the door.

"Lex, they're just kids --" Clark added hastily, shouting vainly at Lex's retreating body, then opening his own door and springing out onto the driveway.

"Trick," Lex declaimed, just as Clark skidded to a halt at his side.

"What?" asked the alien.

"You said 'trick or treat', and I chose 'trick'. So what's it gonna be? You gonna egg the Porsche?" Lex asked in his scary CEO voice. "Juvie records aren't as easily sealed as they used to be, more's the pity."

One of the robots started crying. Clark hastily extracted a couple of squashed cupcakes from his utility belt. "Here, treat!" he called, and pressed the crumbling orange-iced cupcakes into sticky hands. "Go home. Pirates are cranky when it's past their bedtime."

They scooted down the drive, but not before Lex shouted after them. "Pirates eat kids, you know!"

Clark shook his head in disbelief. "You are a sick --"

Lex's mouth was on his. He tasted like punch and cupcakes and like three years of held-back kisses. His hand was slip-sliding along Clark's spandexed chest, which was frustrating, but it didn't change the fact that this was happening, this was real, even though it was happening while they were wearing eyepatches and masks and constricting underwear.

Extremely constricting underwear, suddenly.

Lex closed the attack with a pair of tender kisses. As he backed away, he smiled against Clark's lips. "Do you think it can work? I mean, what do a pirate and a superhero have in common anyway?"

Clark breathed in Lex's smell, unable to resist more gentle kisses along the margin of Lex's mouth.

"Well," Clark whispered, pulling Lex closer, closing his hands around Lex's waist. "For starters, they're both really gay."