title: action
author: jessica
mail: thegirlinglasses@illuminatedtext.com
date: october 23, 2003
notes: for the two line challenge.
every mistake i make/i couldn't have made without you - the get up kids "action and action"
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Clark walked through the front door and was waved through the detectors with a toothy smile from Jack, the front desk guard. Gossip was running slow at LexCorp, and Clark wondered if the news had even made it out of the penthouse. Lex had, though. Clark had been sure Lex would pull some kind of stunt, play hooky from work and come out of the bathroom while Clark was dumping his underwear drawer into a duffle bag. But the penthouse was empty. Clark had checked even before he unlocked the front door.
He wandered the rooms a little aimlessly, picking up only what caught his eye. He filled his boxes with books and CDs from the office and living room, saving his clothes - and the bedroom - for last. He could still hear the shouting in that room. Grabbing a brownie from the plate in the kitchen, Clark headed to the bathroom for the toothbrush he had left there the night before. It was in the quiet, echoing space that his ears finally picked up the buzzing that he had almost trained himself not to hear. Clark swallowed his mouthful of brownie, offering a sad wave in the direction of the closest surveillance camera. Lex was there after all, just waiting for Clark to find him.
His stuff was all over the penthouse. Clark's books never had found a place in Lex's library, living on a tiny bookshelf in his office instead. His CDs were rarely out of the player long enough to find their space in Lex's alphabetical collection. But Clark had stood his ground in the bedroom, and demanded half of Lex's closet.
Lost among Lex's freshly laundered shirts, he was regretting that now. And he couldn't remember whether there was a camera in here, which was bugging him, considering how many times they had fucked up against the Paul Smith suits.
Clark grabbed two of his own suits and enough shirts to last a week, and left everything printed with plaid. He'd have Lex, and Lex would have someone else, pack up and courier the rest. His boxes and bags stacked at the front door were depressing to look at, so Clark went back to the kitchen for another brownie. There was no milk in the fridge to go with it.
He stood in the middle of the kitchen. He thought about writing a note. He thought about leaving a message on the machine, something he knew Lex would play over and over, like he would the videotape. Clark even thought about staying - Lex would be home in an hour, maybe two - but that wasn't the purpose of all this.
He wasn't at the point yet where he would start thinking he was making a mistake. Leaving, Clark told himself, was why he had come.
So, he wrote a note on a little piece of paper, and stuck it to the fridge with a cartoon corncob magnet. "Buy Milk." He hoped Lex would see it.