Okay, first of all, Jacob is played by Elijah Wood in my mind.  I've been betaing and enthusiastically cheering sparktastic's Learning Curve series (a LOTRiPS AU) and I fell, hard, for her version of Elijah as a shy college student in love with someone who's in love with an older man.  So, yeah, giant shout-out right here.  Of course, her Elijah doesn't turn out to be evil like Jacob.

Clark looked down at his red t-shirt and jeans.  "Um.  Thanks?"  This was *so* not a date, but Jacob was messing it up by commenting on Clark’s clothes.  "You too." 

Jacob actually *did* look nice, in jeans with a white untucked dress shirt under an open light brown corduroy blazer.  His dark hair was mussed, but sort of purposefully, not like Clark’s own curly mess.  Even though Jacob looked much younger than eighteen, he was actually a really good dresser, and how had Clark not noticed that before?  "I’m all finished here, so you wanna ..."

Jacob's style here foreshadows how Clark is dressed by Lex for the zoo benefit.  I'm not a huge fan of describing clothes, but, again, sparktastic had been sending me a lot of pictures of the LOTR boys and their particular style, and the image of Clark dressed like that stuck in my mind.

"Yeah," Clark agreed hastily.  "Yeah, let’s go."  The other people in the Monitor office were watching with the unapologetic curiosity of journalists.  He seriously doubted that anyone there would believe Clark's not-a-date theory.

At this point, I still had no idea what Clark was going to do to try and alienate Jacob, if he was going to lie to him (Clark's area of expertise) or if he was going to become even more embroiled in the situation.  I'd already decided that Jacob was a spy, but I don't think I'd decided for whom -- I was waffling between Lois and Lionel, still, I believe.  Around this time, though, I got the idea of Jacob being the one to leak the news of Clark and Lex's marriage to Lois -- originally, I simply had Lois find the marriage certificate in the Grandville civil records as she was digging up dirt on Lex, but this was more fun.

As they walked to the nearby cafe, they discussed the latest editorials and some of the stupid letters they'd received in response, which got Jacob talking about how he hated copy editing letters that were sent in.  "I mean, if they're too dumb to spell properly, why on earth should we have to fix it for them?" he grouched.

Clark laughed.  "You could say the same thing about my articles, couldn't you?"

Jacob blushed and muttered something about not meaning reporters, and Clark just grinned.  "So are you a big coffee fan?  I mean, how serious are you about coffee?" Jacob asked, once his colour had receded somewhat.

Heh.  Watch me go all Joss Whedon for the next line.  I'm a huge Buffy fan, though I've never written in the fandom, and Joss's particular brand of dialogue just makes me giggle like crazy.  I sometimes have my boys slip into Joss-ish, even though it's incongruous amidst the language of Smallville.

Clark raised an eyebrow.  "Five?" he guessed, smiling.  "I'm serious to the degree of five."

"Five out of?" Jacob prompted, smiling back.

"Um.  Fifty?  You're not about to start talking about shade-grown and Columbian varieties and coarse grind, are you?" Clark asked nervously.

Shout-out to black_siren, who's a Starbucks barista -- actually, she's Tom Welling's barista, as it so happens.

Jacob shook his head, smiling.  "No.  Though I do appreciate a good Turkish--"

"Stop!  I get enough of this at home!" Clark ordered playfully.

"Oh, are your folks into coffee?" Jacob asked, holding the door of the cafe for Clark, even though they weren't on a date.

Notice how Clark is still trying really hard to convince himself he's not on a date.  I think that Clark isn't just struggling to be faithful to Lex, here -- after all, he's only recently admitted that he's even attracted to Lex -- but he's more panicked by the idea of acting on his newly discovered bisexuality.  Clark's still a smalltown boy, at this point, who's just completely thrown by the idea of two guys out on a date.

"Um, no.  My roommate.  My parents have a farm, about three hours away."

See?  He has to bring up the farm.  It's like he's posting a sign for Jacob to let him know that Clark is still Way Uncomfortable with this bisexuality stuff.

"Oh."  It was the kind of 'oh' that denoted some disappointment, probably about Clark having a roommate, which was good because it was part of the plan to get Jacob to back off.  Clark was aiming for giving off the 'taken' vibe without having to be explicit about it.  But Jacob looked so sad.

This is when Clark finally let me in on his plan -- he wants to scare Jacob off by simply intimating involvement somewhere else, presumably with the mysterious roommate.  What Jacob knows already, however, is that Clark lives with Lex Luthor (Jacob's been stalking Clark all over the place and probably saw Lex and Clark coming out of the apartment together or something.)  Jacob knew Lex and Clark were friends, then on Lois's prompting, made the discovery that they lived together.  Jacob has a genuine crush on Clark, though, and he's not too thrilled with the vibe Clark's giving here.

"Why don't you grab a table and I'll get the coffee?" Clark suggested, eyeing the line-up.  "What do you want?"  They quibbled briefly about whether Jacob should buy his own coffee, but Clark conceded the point because it wasn't a date.

See?  Not a date.  (Dream on, Clark.)

"So are you, um, recently out?" Jacob asked when they were seated with their drinks.  "I just ... kind of got that impression on Friday.  Like you couldn't believe that you were saying it."

Clark couldn't escape a blush as he nodded, saying, "It's kind of new still."

"I know what that's like," Jacob said sympathetically.  "I just came out last year.  Tell your parents yet?"

Clark's blush receded as quickly as it had come.  "God, no."  And I never will, Clark added internally.

So here's the newly-outed farmboy being completely incapable of imagining what impact his bisexuality could have on his life.  Clark's been looking at gay porn, and enjoying it, but he's not even close to imagining that he could act on his attraction to a guy.  He's probably convinced himself that it can be a sort of masturbatory hobby, but that he can live the rest of his live only skronking girls.

"My advice?  I mean, if you want my advice ..."  God, Jacob was endearingly awkward.  He kind of made Clark feel smooth and cool in comparison.

Yes, Jacob's actually more of a spazz than Clark.  I know, it's hard to believe.  But then, Jacob's feelings for Clark aren't unlike Clark's feelings for Lex, so this is really not unlike one of Clark's dork attacks when he's talking to Lex.

"Oh, sure," Clark urged, trying to sound interested.

"Tell them now.  Don't wait until you're already in a relationship, because this way, they won't automatically blame whoever you're with."  There was an undertone of bitterness in Jacob's voice that spoke of personal experience in the area.

I think Jacob's telling the truth here -- he really *does* have problems with his dad and it's a big issue for him.  He also knows that it'll garner the sympathy of a tender-hearted guy like Clark here.

Clark nodded thoughtfully, as if this was in some way applicable to his life ... but it wasn't, because Clark was Never Telling His Parents.  "So what are you taking this semester?" Clark asked, after a short interval elapsed.

They went through all their courses, most of the Monitor reporters, two refills, and a bathroom break each before Clark realized that he probably should have ended this not-a-date sooner rather than later.  Jacob was starting to smile a lot more and he seemed less nervous and now he was making little flirty gestures, like casually touching Clark's hand across the table, and clearly Clark wasn't making a good case for this being not-a-date.

Clark should be taking notes here.  This sort of thing would have accelerated matters with Lex.

Clark was trying to think of a way to end the evening when his cell phone rang.  "Oh, um, sorry.  It's my roommate," Clark apologized, checking the display.  "Do you mind if ..."  Jacob waved a hand, still smiling.

Lex told me he was going to call, a few paragraphs back.  I agreed that this would be a nice way for Clark to radiate 'taken' without great machinations on his part, and it would serve to illustrate exactly how flirty Clark and Lex have become recently, too.  The celery salt, though ...

"Clark, where did you leave the celery salt?" Lex demanded in reply to Clark's 'hello'.

Okay, I think I was chatting on MSN with sparktastic when Lex said this.  I said something to her like, "What the hell is celery salt?  Lex wants to know where it is and I don't even know what he needs it for?"  And she laughed at me because Lex has totally made me his bitch.

"What's celery salt?" Clark asked, frowning.

See, this is why Clark and I get along.

"It's that stuff you use in the omelettes.  With the ... it's sort of green and it's salty.  And it says 'celery salt' on the jar."

Thank you, Google.

"Oh, that stuff.  That's called celery salt?"

Clark belongs to my mom's school of cooking, which is the taste and add school.  Not coincidentally, it's how I cook too, when I'm not being anal retentive with an actual recipe.  I've got to say, the best things I've ever made, I have no clue what I put in them.  Taste and add, I'm telling you.

Lex's taste and add, on the other hand ... ew.

"It's not where you normally put it.  You know, in with the other herbs."

Okay, at this point, I got a visual of Lex standing in the kitchen on the portable phone, not trying very hard to find the celery salt.  In fact, he probably hasn't even taken the eggs out of the fridge.  He's just looking for a reason to demand that Clark come home and cook for him.  Clark is probably very cute when he's cooking, so I can't blame Lex for this.

"Well, maybe you're the one who put it someplace different, then," Clark suggested, grinning at Lex's testy tone.

I think this is the first time we've seen Clark react this way to Lex's pissiness -- no, wait, the first time was the pre-Christmas "You *are* coming to Smallville" talk.  But it still makes me giggle because Clark sees through Lex's princess act and just teases the shit out of him.  I like brat!Clark.

"I don't even *use* celery salt!" Lex snapped, but it was the playfully pissy voice, the one that meant Lex was having too much fun pretending to be angry to admit that he wasn't actually that mad.

"Then why are you looking for it?" Clark laughed, spinning his empty coffee cup with his free hand.

And the unspoken visual here, because we're in Clark's POV ... pan out from Clark's flirty grin and see that he's turned slightly in his chair, looking across the cafe and unaware of Jacob, who's sitting across from Clark looking very small and trying to look unbothered by his date's preoccupation.

"I'm making an omelette," Lex replied with exaggerated patience.  "And I want it to taste like when *you* make an omelette."

"As opposed to when *you* make an omelette and it tastes like carbon," Clark teased, picturing Lex at the kitchen counter, glaring at the eggs.

Ah, but we know Lex didn't even have the eggs out.  He's probably glaring at the fridge.

Lex huffed into the phone, but Clark could hear that he was smiling in spite of himself.  "Well, if you're such a culinary artist, why aren't you here cooking my dinner for me?"

"What am I, your little housewife?" Clark snorted.

"If the giant shoe fits ..." Lex began, laughter edging into his voice.  "Where are you?  I hear sad broody college music in the background.  Are you still on campus?  Hasn't the paper gone to press by now?"

Lex is almost ordering Clark home at this point.  He wants to watch Clark cook, dammit!

"Yeah, I'm having coffee with a friend," Clark answered, recalling Jacob's presence.  Jacob was busily inspecting the words on the empty sugar packets lying between them, affecting not to listen to Clark's conversation.

Poor Jacob.  Poor double-crossing snake bastard Jacob.  But you can see here, he really does have a thing for Clark, typos and all.

"A friend?  What's her name?"  Clark wasn't sure if it was an effect of his enhanced hearing, but he could swear he heard Lex leering.

Lex isn't jealous because a) he trusts that Clark is too good a boy to break their agreement, and b) he's totally convinced that Clark is still completely in love with Chloe.

"Jacob."

A surprised exhalation.  "Clark!  You're full of surprises," Lex insinuated in that ultra-sleek voice. 

See Lex trying to be cool about this, convincing himself that Clark is just teasing him, that it's a joke.  But Lex knows, deep inside, that this isn't the sort of joke that Clark makes.

Lex clearly meant to embarrass Clark with the implication, but Clark refused to react.  Instead, he cupped his hand closer around the phone, and said, smiling, "You have no idea."  This time, there wasn't so much as a hint of the chain-smoking truck driver in Clark's tone.  Practice made perfect.

Back at the apartment, Lex just got hard in the space of two or three seconds, because he *knows* now that Clark wasn't kidding and Clark seems to be implying that he's comfortable using his Sexy Voice on Lex.  It's Lex's first hint that Clark might be attracted to him.  He's so jerking off the second he hangs up.

Lex's long silence confirmed Clark's success with the sexy voice.  Finally, Lex released a low laugh of appreciation.  "Well, bring some celery salt when you come home."

"And a fire extinguisher," Clark appended gravely.  "And maybe some air freshener."

And maybe a box of tissues.

"You're killing me here," Lex returned smoothly.  "Say hi to Jacob for me."

Little bit of jealousy here.  Lex is suddenly not too happy with the idea that his husband is out on a date with a boy, however infatuated said husband might be with his ex-girlfriend.

"Bye," Clark said pointedly, uncomfortably aware that Jacob was fidgeting with impatience.

"Bye."

By the time Clark tucked his phone back in his pocket and looked up at Jacob, he knew that there wouldn't be a second not-date.  He only wished that there was some way to make Jacob look less depressed about the prospect.  Still, it would hardly be helpful to provide Jacob with Lex's policy on not paying people who sleep with him ... so Clark smiled in feigned obliviousness and brought the conversation back to where they'd left it.

Yep.  Pooooooor Jacob.