Therefore I am 22/?(WIP)
I've got Chapter 22 of Therefore I am ready.
Lex was finally asleep. Clark knew this, because he'd checked about four times while he was out and Lex had been adamantly glued to the computer and 'not' safely slumbering. And after the couch and the wall, unconscious was the only state Clark felt safe around Lex. At least it had felt that way last night, once he'd had enough distance to get a hold of his obviously insane libido.
And after he'd done his due diligence at the park, spying on owls and interviewing fervent bird watchers, he'd gone to the Planet, which never slept, written up the story and left it on his editor's desk with a little paste it with 'the owl story you asked for', attached. Which wasn't entirely a lie, since the dayshift city editor had mentioned the Audubon's quest to save the Metropolis owls sometime a few days ago in the midst a pressroom conference. He hadn't actually assigned the story, having gotten distracted by a bigger breaking city council scandal and no one had volunteered.
That loose end tied up, he'd spent the rest of the night and early morning doing Red Blue Blur type things, which kept him from having to think too hard on what he'd been doing earlier. What he'd engaged in wholeheartedly. But even he'd gotten tired of chasing down random crime by 3am, when he'd been reduced to chasing away taggers making dubious art on the side of a building in Little Bohemia.
He slipped in through his bedroom window around four, since the chain was dutifully latched on the door, after Lex was sprawled on the couch in front of a TV softly spewing some 24-hour news channel. Clark generally didn't do stealthy well, but he crept in as silently as he was capable and extracted the remote from Lex's slack fingers, switching the TV off without rousing him. He stood for a moment, staring down, thinking how vulnerable Lex seemed asleep. How young seeming - - but that was just the new body, housing everything that had been the old Lex. Almost everything. This Lex wasn't broken and Clark wanted to believe that so badly it hurt a little inside, because he wasn't entirely convinced he hadn't contributed to that original damage. Depressing thought, and he swallowed, taking the throw off the arm of the couch by Lex's feet and draping it over him.
In a few hours he had to be back at the Planet, but he didn't need much sleep. He fell into bed half clothed, and woke up around six, lying there for a moment, listening to the sounds of a city coming alive. Then it was out of bed to heed the call of nature. A quick glance into the living room showed Lex still asleep, the throw tossed off during the night, one leg trailing off the side of the couch.
Clark took a really quick shower, towel dried and dressed in workday attire. His closet was suspiciously organized, by shirt, pants and jackets, like somebody with a touch of OCD hadn't been able to help himself.
Clark grinned and pulled a tie at random from the rack on the back of the closet door, draped it around his neck and headed to the living room. He sort of had to exit by the front door, having neighbors that were used to hearing him leave. Old Mr. Gavin was always out front smoking his forbidden cigarette in the morning and if Clark didn't stroll out on a workday at his usual time, the whole building would know about it by afternoon. Which usually wouldn't have been an issue, he was okay with a little neighborly noisiness, but he really didn't want one of the tenants knocking at his door to inquire about the state of his health with Lex in the apartment.
So he crept through the living room, figuring he'd get breakfast at the little stand outside the Planet so as not to disturb Lex - - he really, really didn't want to disturb Lex - - when a flash of pale skin caught his attention. And he stopped, snared by the way Lex's shirt had ridden up, and the sweat pants, which were Clarks and way too loose on Lex, had ridden down, revealing the jut of hipbone and a hand's width of flat stomach, the indention of muscle veering down - - and just fuck. Clark generally didn't curse a lot, even in his head, because his mom's disapproving face always cropped up when he did - - but some situations just called for it and this was getting out of hand. And Lex hadn't always been this distracting, had he? - - Because Clark would never have survived his teenaged years otherwise.
With an effort, he tore his eyes away and made it to the door. Silently slipped the chain and locked up after himself. With his back to the door he took a few breaths to clear his head, then headed out, able to smile cheerfully to Mr. Gavin and head down the sidewalk towards the bus stop as if nothing had arrived to seriously upset the routine his life had fallen into. He didn't actually take the bus, he never did, just put on a burst of speed when he'd turned the corner and was outside the Planet in a few seconds flat.
At six am the office was already bustling, but Lois had a tendency to be late and if he was lucky, he'd find something to take him away from his desk before she showed up. But the sharp, rapid clatter of heels on marble heralded her unprecedented early arrival. His luck was really starting to suck.
"You're early," he smiled up at her as she dumped an armful of files on her desk. She had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a Krispy Kreme bag sticking out of her purse.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She gave him a narrow eyed look.
"Nothing. Just that - - you know, you're early."
She made a disgruntled noise and sat down, positioning donuts and coffee on the desk before her. She brought up her computer and turned the screen so it was very clearly blocking his view of her.
"So, you come up with anything else about that Lex Luthor thing?" He lowered his voice to a whisper on the last part of that question.
She leaned to the side, so she could peer around the monitor at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Well, actually - - yeah."
She sniffed. "Well, it sucks to be you, Smallville. Find your own story. Maybe the owls are planning a terrorist attack. You might get front page."
He pursed his lips and glared back at her, but before he could think up an appropriately cutting comeback, their city editor was stalking his way, bellowing his name.
"Kent get over to Glenberry middle school. They just pulled a kid out of class with a gun."
Lois perked up. "I could go."
"You can finish up that Dog show story, is what you can do, Lane. Have it on my desk in thirty minutes."
She pouted, and Clark couldn't quite hold back the grin, as he grabbed his coat and headed out.
It wasn't that exciting a story. The gun turned out to be a realistic water pistol, but the school and the cops took even fake guns seriously. He interviewed about a dozen kids and teachers, the kid's parents, got a quote from the police and put in a call to the school board president but the woman refused comment.
He called in the story, and stood out in the school parking lot considering his next move. The Lex problem wasn't going to go away and there were a lot of different levels to that problem. The personal Lex stuff was disconcerting enough, but the Lex in Tess's cross-hair's and likely Oliver's and God help him Lana's, if Chloe had given her a head's up, sort of made his palms itch. He needed to do something on that front, but he wasn't exactly sure what.
He decided to talk to Chloe.
She was at lunch when he called, but she was Jimmy free, so he ran over to the café on 6th and Faraday where she was at and joined her at a patio table. She was just sweetening her iced tea when he showed up, and she'd ordered him a soda, which was sitting at the place across from her. There was a menu too, but he'd been to this place before and knew what he liked. He waited till the waitress came over to get his order, before asking.
"So, heard anything?"
"Have you?" She countered. "Did you find him?"
Clark took a sip of his soda, careful of his expression because Chloe could read him like a book and he didn't need things slipping when she was worried enough not to keep Lex-related secrets among themselves. She had good reasons and he didn't fault her for them. They just applied to the wrong Lex.
"He's hunkered down somewhere," Clark shrugged, and it wasn't even a lie.
"That's what I'm afraid of." Chloe wrinkled her brow, idly stirring her tea.
"Chloe, I don't think he's plotting anything. " He rethought and added. "Not anything dangerous. "
"How do you know?" She gave him a look. One of those penetrating ones that hinted she knew something was up with him. There was nothing so frustrating, when you were just trying to avoid a few complications, as having friends too clever for their own good.
He tightened his mouth in exasperation and snapped. "I think if anybody's a good judge of Lex, its me and I wish everybody would stop assuming otherwise."
She lifted a brow at the outburst. "Nobody's assuming that, Clark."
"Oliver does." There was enough petulance his voice that Clark actually picked up on it himself.
"Well, Oliver has - - issues." Chloe said carefully, and Clark glowered, because Oliver had no business having issues with Lex. If anybody was going to have issues with Lex, it was damn well going to be Clark.
"What's that mean?" he asked and Chloe gave him a look at the tone and he gave her a look right back, because he was annoyed and he wasn't even entirely sure why.
It was Chloe's turn to hedge. She shrugged, looked aside as the waitress came with their lunch, then said. "He's just worried. We're all worried."
"Well, I've got in under control."
"How?"
"Did you tell Lana?"
Chloe nodded around a mouthful of salad, allowing him his diversion.
Clark took a breath, that place at the pit of his stomach quivering a little. Hope and worry warring.
"Yeah? What did she say?"
Chloe put her fork down, a little something evasive in her eyes. But that might have been guilt that Lana was talking to her, but not to him, and Chloe wasn't comfortable with the arrangement. He knew she hated it, so he didn't press.
"She said be careful and not to trust him."
Clark swallowed. "That's all?"
Chloe smiled apologetically. "That's all."
Figured. The first time she'd bothered to communicate with him - - even via Chloe - - in three months and all she had were warnings about Lex.
He picked up his burger and took a savage bite, chewed relentlessly while he pushed down the hurt.
"What's Oliver doing?" He finally had to ask, because he had to know, Oliver being almost as immediate a threat as Tess, almost as frightening a one, with his plans of deep, dark rooms in which to lock people away for eternity. To lock Lex away and damned if Clark would let him do it.
"He's looking," Chloe said. "He's worried Lex will go after Tess again."
"I told you he didn't - -"
"I know. He claims she went after him. Whoever struck first, do you think Lex Luthor isn't going to try and get in the last blow? You're the one who claims to know him and that's not crystal clear to you?"
Well, now that she mentioned it, Lex never had taken warfare casually, in business, or love, or obsession. He tended to like to win. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as that last blow part was simply allegorical.
"And you were right," Chloe said around a bite of tomato. "She's got her people out looking for him, too. There's a lot of activity on the LuthorCorp security front. Some of those supposedly defunct black op cells Lex used to run are going active again."
"You don't think he - -?"
"Not at all. It's totally Tess's show. Oliver thought she'd deactivated those cells - - but apparently not. They're having - - ah disagreements over it, so I hear."
"You don't think she has any way to track him, do you?" Clark asked as the uncomfortable thought hit.
"The Lex-clone?" Chloe lifted a brow. "I doubt it. It wasn't her project and when Lex was making it, he damn sure knew she wasn't in his corner. I imagine its transmitter free."
"He's not an it," Clark said.
Chloe canted her head, looking at him curiously. "He got to you, didn't he?"
"What?" he blinked at her.
"When you talked with him - - whatever he said - - he got to you. You've got your 'I've got a cause' face on and this time that cause is Lex Luthor's clone."
She was looking at him like he baffled her. He baffled himself a little, but he felt what he felt.
After lunch, he swung by the apartment, just to make sure Lex hadn't found trouble or vice versa. But the apartment was empty. Clark cursed, sped across the street and inside, just to make sure, and yes, the place was deserted. Other than a floor full of Captain Crunch in the kitchen, everything else was spotless. So if anyone had broken in and taken Lex by force, they'd been really neat about it. The other alternative was Lex taking off on his own - - and considering what had happened the last time - - breaking and entering and attempted assassination - - Clark wasn't sure which scenario alarmed him more.
He paced around a bit, coming up with dread images in his head. He had a lot of fuel to feed the anxiety, because it wasn't like Lex even needed to go out looking for trouble in particular, Lex could be minding his own business, and keeping a perfectly low profile and if something dangerous were out there, it was going to manage to find him. It didn't even necessarily have to be any of the current people out gunning for him. Any random psycho might do.
But what if Chloe had figured out Clark was hiding something and she'd mentioned it to Oliver and Oliver to Tess - -? He'd told Lex to call out if he were in trouble, but Lex might not have had the chance, or might not have really believed Clark would hear him - - or could have just refused to follow Clark's orders out of some perverse stubbornness.
The places Tess could have taken him were boundless, and Chloe only had tabs on a few - - and besides, Tess didn't want him alive and imprisoned, she wanted him dead demolished down to the last cell - - so Clark really didn't have time to go hunting down secret LuthorCorp holding facilities if she had gotten her hands on him.
He was in the LuthorCorp lobby and up the east stairwell to the 62nd floor, before he'd finished forming the thought that he needed to see Tess face to face to try and figure out if she'd just done something unforgivable. Judicious bursts of speed got him past state of the art security.
Tess's secretary didn't know him, not like Lex's had, and she rose from her desk as Clark stalked past, headed for the frosted glass doors of the office that she'd inherited from Lex.
"Excuse me!! Excuse me, you can't go in - -" Clark wasn't even using super speed and the woman was too slow to stop him from getting through those doors. He got two steps and stopped, gaping.
Oliver was apparently in the process of performing some sort of complex CPR upon Tess on the glass surface of her desk. Clark chose to embrace that notion, even though Tess's legs were half wrapped around his hips and there was a good sliver of ass showing between the hem of Oliver's shirt and the waistband of his sagging pants.
"Fuck," Oliver hissed, obviously caught in the midst of a crucial point in the maneuver and - -"Knocking is not an over rated courtesy." From Tess.
Clark turned on his heel, heat rushing to his cheeks, and stood staring at the equally red faced secretary hastily closing the doors before the security she'd called up could rush in and make it a show.
The curse of enhanced hearing allowed him to hear the wet slide of flesh exiting flesh and the rustling of clothing being readjusted and he shut his eyes and considered just fleeing the scene entirely, because really, if Tess was in the midst of dealing with a very serious thorn in her side, would she take the time out for a quickie on her desk with Oliver Queen? It seemed highly unlikely to Clark.
"So, just swing by to shoot the breeze?" Oliver sounded entirely too relaxed considering what Clark had just caught in the middle of. The very middle.
Clark dared peek over his shoulder and they were vertical, Oliver not bothering to tuck in his shirt, but at least his pants were up. Tess didn't look quite so pleased and she wasn't bothering to spare either of them the evil eye.
"Is there something you wanted, Clark?" she said his name like a piece of something vaguely shit-flavored had just landed on her tongue.
He wasn't sure how to phrase an inquiry that wouldn't do him more harm than good, and from the look her face, and the way she was holding her body, he got the feeling she was tense from more than an untimely interruption. If she'd landed Lex, then she'd probably be pretty relaxed, right about now.
"I - um - just stopped by to see Oliver."
"In my office?"
"He wasn't in his."
"Obviously."
Oliver grinned a little, which Tess couldn't see. He wiped it off his face when he turned and said. "So I guess we'll finish checking out those positions later on."
Tess's expression didn't waver. She just gave him the same narrow eyed look she'd worn since Clark had turned back around and said coolly. "I don’t think so. My schedule is full for the rest of the evening."
Oliver shrugged, not looking particularly put off, and caught Clark's arm on the way out. They didn't say anything, until they'd walked into Oliver's office - - the same corner office that had used to belong to Lionel Luthor, incidentally - - then Oliver turned on him and asked.
"What?"
"Just wondering if you'd found anything yet about - - you know?"
Oliver migrated towards the bar and poured himself a thumbs worth of something expensive, threw it back and shrugged. "I'm working on it. There's nothing stirring out there that I've been able to find yet. You?"
Clark shook his head. "How about Tess? You think she's on to anything?"
Oliver laughed. "Despite appearances, she doesn't share a lot with me."
"You think you'd know if she found him?"
Oliver tilted his head, trying to figure Clark out and Clark refused to let his expression change. "I don't know. Like I said, she's good with her secrets. Honestly, would it be a terrible thing? If she did find him and he just disappeared, it would save everybody a lot of time and effort."
Clark felt his non-expression crack. His fists clenched and there was the audible sound of knuckles popping. "So it would be okay, if she committed a little murder, as long as it saved you some time and effort? How do you even think that?"
Oliver turned his head, looking out the floor to ceiling windows. A muscle in his jaw flinched spasmodically. "I don't know. Sometimes you make the hard choices for the greater good."
"Yeah. That sounds exactly like something Lex would have said. And you'd have condemned him for it."
"So did you," Oliver said, on Clark's retreating back.
And it was true. He had and he would again, if the occasion arose. The difference was, he wasn't prepared to make those sacrifices himself and he never would.
To be continued . . .
Lex was finally asleep. Clark knew this, because he'd checked about four times while he was out and Lex had been adamantly glued to the computer and 'not' safely slumbering. And after the couch and the wall, unconscious was the only state Clark felt safe around Lex. At least it had felt that way last night, once he'd had enough distance to get a hold of his obviously insane libido.
And after he'd done his due diligence at the park, spying on owls and interviewing fervent bird watchers, he'd gone to the Planet, which never slept, written up the story and left it on his editor's desk with a little paste it with 'the owl story you asked for', attached. Which wasn't entirely a lie, since the dayshift city editor had mentioned the Audubon's quest to save the Metropolis owls sometime a few days ago in the midst a pressroom conference. He hadn't actually assigned the story, having gotten distracted by a bigger breaking city council scandal and no one had volunteered.
That loose end tied up, he'd spent the rest of the night and early morning doing Red Blue Blur type things, which kept him from having to think too hard on what he'd been doing earlier. What he'd engaged in wholeheartedly. But even he'd gotten tired of chasing down random crime by 3am, when he'd been reduced to chasing away taggers making dubious art on the side of a building in Little Bohemia.
He slipped in through his bedroom window around four, since the chain was dutifully latched on the door, after Lex was sprawled on the couch in front of a TV softly spewing some 24-hour news channel. Clark generally didn't do stealthy well, but he crept in as silently as he was capable and extracted the remote from Lex's slack fingers, switching the TV off without rousing him. He stood for a moment, staring down, thinking how vulnerable Lex seemed asleep. How young seeming - - but that was just the new body, housing everything that had been the old Lex. Almost everything. This Lex wasn't broken and Clark wanted to believe that so badly it hurt a little inside, because he wasn't entirely convinced he hadn't contributed to that original damage. Depressing thought, and he swallowed, taking the throw off the arm of the couch by Lex's feet and draping it over him.
In a few hours he had to be back at the Planet, but he didn't need much sleep. He fell into bed half clothed, and woke up around six, lying there for a moment, listening to the sounds of a city coming alive. Then it was out of bed to heed the call of nature. A quick glance into the living room showed Lex still asleep, the throw tossed off during the night, one leg trailing off the side of the couch.
Clark took a really quick shower, towel dried and dressed in workday attire. His closet was suspiciously organized, by shirt, pants and jackets, like somebody with a touch of OCD hadn't been able to help himself.
Clark grinned and pulled a tie at random from the rack on the back of the closet door, draped it around his neck and headed to the living room. He sort of had to exit by the front door, having neighbors that were used to hearing him leave. Old Mr. Gavin was always out front smoking his forbidden cigarette in the morning and if Clark didn't stroll out on a workday at his usual time, the whole building would know about it by afternoon. Which usually wouldn't have been an issue, he was okay with a little neighborly noisiness, but he really didn't want one of the tenants knocking at his door to inquire about the state of his health with Lex in the apartment.
So he crept through the living room, figuring he'd get breakfast at the little stand outside the Planet so as not to disturb Lex - - he really, really didn't want to disturb Lex - - when a flash of pale skin caught his attention. And he stopped, snared by the way Lex's shirt had ridden up, and the sweat pants, which were Clarks and way too loose on Lex, had ridden down, revealing the jut of hipbone and a hand's width of flat stomach, the indention of muscle veering down - - and just fuck. Clark generally didn't curse a lot, even in his head, because his mom's disapproving face always cropped up when he did - - but some situations just called for it and this was getting out of hand. And Lex hadn't always been this distracting, had he? - - Because Clark would never have survived his teenaged years otherwise.
With an effort, he tore his eyes away and made it to the door. Silently slipped the chain and locked up after himself. With his back to the door he took a few breaths to clear his head, then headed out, able to smile cheerfully to Mr. Gavin and head down the sidewalk towards the bus stop as if nothing had arrived to seriously upset the routine his life had fallen into. He didn't actually take the bus, he never did, just put on a burst of speed when he'd turned the corner and was outside the Planet in a few seconds flat.
At six am the office was already bustling, but Lois had a tendency to be late and if he was lucky, he'd find something to take him away from his desk before she showed up. But the sharp, rapid clatter of heels on marble heralded her unprecedented early arrival. His luck was really starting to suck.
"You're early," he smiled up at her as she dumped an armful of files on her desk. She had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a Krispy Kreme bag sticking out of her purse.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She gave him a narrow eyed look.
"Nothing. Just that - - you know, you're early."
She made a disgruntled noise and sat down, positioning donuts and coffee on the desk before her. She brought up her computer and turned the screen so it was very clearly blocking his view of her.
"So, you come up with anything else about that Lex Luthor thing?" He lowered his voice to a whisper on the last part of that question.
She leaned to the side, so she could peer around the monitor at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Well, actually - - yeah."
She sniffed. "Well, it sucks to be you, Smallville. Find your own story. Maybe the owls are planning a terrorist attack. You might get front page."
He pursed his lips and glared back at her, but before he could think up an appropriately cutting comeback, their city editor was stalking his way, bellowing his name.
"Kent get over to Glenberry middle school. They just pulled a kid out of class with a gun."
Lois perked up. "I could go."
"You can finish up that Dog show story, is what you can do, Lane. Have it on my desk in thirty minutes."
She pouted, and Clark couldn't quite hold back the grin, as he grabbed his coat and headed out.
It wasn't that exciting a story. The gun turned out to be a realistic water pistol, but the school and the cops took even fake guns seriously. He interviewed about a dozen kids and teachers, the kid's parents, got a quote from the police and put in a call to the school board president but the woman refused comment.
He called in the story, and stood out in the school parking lot considering his next move. The Lex problem wasn't going to go away and there were a lot of different levels to that problem. The personal Lex stuff was disconcerting enough, but the Lex in Tess's cross-hair's and likely Oliver's and God help him Lana's, if Chloe had given her a head's up, sort of made his palms itch. He needed to do something on that front, but he wasn't exactly sure what.
He decided to talk to Chloe.
She was at lunch when he called, but she was Jimmy free, so he ran over to the café on 6th and Faraday where she was at and joined her at a patio table. She was just sweetening her iced tea when he showed up, and she'd ordered him a soda, which was sitting at the place across from her. There was a menu too, but he'd been to this place before and knew what he liked. He waited till the waitress came over to get his order, before asking.
"So, heard anything?"
"Have you?" She countered. "Did you find him?"
Clark took a sip of his soda, careful of his expression because Chloe could read him like a book and he didn't need things slipping when she was worried enough not to keep Lex-related secrets among themselves. She had good reasons and he didn't fault her for them. They just applied to the wrong Lex.
"He's hunkered down somewhere," Clark shrugged, and it wasn't even a lie.
"That's what I'm afraid of." Chloe wrinkled her brow, idly stirring her tea.
"Chloe, I don't think he's plotting anything. " He rethought and added. "Not anything dangerous. "
"How do you know?" She gave him a look. One of those penetrating ones that hinted she knew something was up with him. There was nothing so frustrating, when you were just trying to avoid a few complications, as having friends too clever for their own good.
He tightened his mouth in exasperation and snapped. "I think if anybody's a good judge of Lex, its me and I wish everybody would stop assuming otherwise."
She lifted a brow at the outburst. "Nobody's assuming that, Clark."
"Oliver does." There was enough petulance his voice that Clark actually picked up on it himself.
"Well, Oliver has - - issues." Chloe said carefully, and Clark glowered, because Oliver had no business having issues with Lex. If anybody was going to have issues with Lex, it was damn well going to be Clark.
"What's that mean?" he asked and Chloe gave him a look at the tone and he gave her a look right back, because he was annoyed and he wasn't even entirely sure why.
It was Chloe's turn to hedge. She shrugged, looked aside as the waitress came with their lunch, then said. "He's just worried. We're all worried."
"Well, I've got in under control."
"How?"
"Did you tell Lana?"
Chloe nodded around a mouthful of salad, allowing him his diversion.
Clark took a breath, that place at the pit of his stomach quivering a little. Hope and worry warring.
"Yeah? What did she say?"
Chloe put her fork down, a little something evasive in her eyes. But that might have been guilt that Lana was talking to her, but not to him, and Chloe wasn't comfortable with the arrangement. He knew she hated it, so he didn't press.
"She said be careful and not to trust him."
Clark swallowed. "That's all?"
Chloe smiled apologetically. "That's all."
Figured. The first time she'd bothered to communicate with him - - even via Chloe - - in three months and all she had were warnings about Lex.
He picked up his burger and took a savage bite, chewed relentlessly while he pushed down the hurt.
"What's Oliver doing?" He finally had to ask, because he had to know, Oliver being almost as immediate a threat as Tess, almost as frightening a one, with his plans of deep, dark rooms in which to lock people away for eternity. To lock Lex away and damned if Clark would let him do it.
"He's looking," Chloe said. "He's worried Lex will go after Tess again."
"I told you he didn't - -"
"I know. He claims she went after him. Whoever struck first, do you think Lex Luthor isn't going to try and get in the last blow? You're the one who claims to know him and that's not crystal clear to you?"
Well, now that she mentioned it, Lex never had taken warfare casually, in business, or love, or obsession. He tended to like to win. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as that last blow part was simply allegorical.
"And you were right," Chloe said around a bite of tomato. "She's got her people out looking for him, too. There's a lot of activity on the LuthorCorp security front. Some of those supposedly defunct black op cells Lex used to run are going active again."
"You don't think he - -?"
"Not at all. It's totally Tess's show. Oliver thought she'd deactivated those cells - - but apparently not. They're having - - ah disagreements over it, so I hear."
"You don't think she has any way to track him, do you?" Clark asked as the uncomfortable thought hit.
"The Lex-clone?" Chloe lifted a brow. "I doubt it. It wasn't her project and when Lex was making it, he damn sure knew she wasn't in his corner. I imagine its transmitter free."
"He's not an it," Clark said.
Chloe canted her head, looking at him curiously. "He got to you, didn't he?"
"What?" he blinked at her.
"When you talked with him - - whatever he said - - he got to you. You've got your 'I've got a cause' face on and this time that cause is Lex Luthor's clone."
She was looking at him like he baffled her. He baffled himself a little, but he felt what he felt.
After lunch, he swung by the apartment, just to make sure Lex hadn't found trouble or vice versa. But the apartment was empty. Clark cursed, sped across the street and inside, just to make sure, and yes, the place was deserted. Other than a floor full of Captain Crunch in the kitchen, everything else was spotless. So if anyone had broken in and taken Lex by force, they'd been really neat about it. The other alternative was Lex taking off on his own - - and considering what had happened the last time - - breaking and entering and attempted assassination - - Clark wasn't sure which scenario alarmed him more.
He paced around a bit, coming up with dread images in his head. He had a lot of fuel to feed the anxiety, because it wasn't like Lex even needed to go out looking for trouble in particular, Lex could be minding his own business, and keeping a perfectly low profile and if something dangerous were out there, it was going to manage to find him. It didn't even necessarily have to be any of the current people out gunning for him. Any random psycho might do.
But what if Chloe had figured out Clark was hiding something and she'd mentioned it to Oliver and Oliver to Tess - -? He'd told Lex to call out if he were in trouble, but Lex might not have had the chance, or might not have really believed Clark would hear him - - or could have just refused to follow Clark's orders out of some perverse stubbornness.
The places Tess could have taken him were boundless, and Chloe only had tabs on a few - - and besides, Tess didn't want him alive and imprisoned, she wanted him dead demolished down to the last cell - - so Clark really didn't have time to go hunting down secret LuthorCorp holding facilities if she had gotten her hands on him.
He was in the LuthorCorp lobby and up the east stairwell to the 62nd floor, before he'd finished forming the thought that he needed to see Tess face to face to try and figure out if she'd just done something unforgivable. Judicious bursts of speed got him past state of the art security.
Tess's secretary didn't know him, not like Lex's had, and she rose from her desk as Clark stalked past, headed for the frosted glass doors of the office that she'd inherited from Lex.
"Excuse me!! Excuse me, you can't go in - -" Clark wasn't even using super speed and the woman was too slow to stop him from getting through those doors. He got two steps and stopped, gaping.
Oliver was apparently in the process of performing some sort of complex CPR upon Tess on the glass surface of her desk. Clark chose to embrace that notion, even though Tess's legs were half wrapped around his hips and there was a good sliver of ass showing between the hem of Oliver's shirt and the waistband of his sagging pants.
"Fuck," Oliver hissed, obviously caught in the midst of a crucial point in the maneuver and - -"Knocking is not an over rated courtesy." From Tess.
Clark turned on his heel, heat rushing to his cheeks, and stood staring at the equally red faced secretary hastily closing the doors before the security she'd called up could rush in and make it a show.
The curse of enhanced hearing allowed him to hear the wet slide of flesh exiting flesh and the rustling of clothing being readjusted and he shut his eyes and considered just fleeing the scene entirely, because really, if Tess was in the midst of dealing with a very serious thorn in her side, would she take the time out for a quickie on her desk with Oliver Queen? It seemed highly unlikely to Clark.
"So, just swing by to shoot the breeze?" Oliver sounded entirely too relaxed considering what Clark had just caught in the middle of. The very middle.
Clark dared peek over his shoulder and they were vertical, Oliver not bothering to tuck in his shirt, but at least his pants were up. Tess didn't look quite so pleased and she wasn't bothering to spare either of them the evil eye.
"Is there something you wanted, Clark?" she said his name like a piece of something vaguely shit-flavored had just landed on her tongue.
He wasn't sure how to phrase an inquiry that wouldn't do him more harm than good, and from the look her face, and the way she was holding her body, he got the feeling she was tense from more than an untimely interruption. If she'd landed Lex, then she'd probably be pretty relaxed, right about now.
"I - um - just stopped by to see Oliver."
"In my office?"
"He wasn't in his."
"Obviously."
Oliver grinned a little, which Tess couldn't see. He wiped it off his face when he turned and said. "So I guess we'll finish checking out those positions later on."
Tess's expression didn't waver. She just gave him the same narrow eyed look she'd worn since Clark had turned back around and said coolly. "I don’t think so. My schedule is full for the rest of the evening."
Oliver shrugged, not looking particularly put off, and caught Clark's arm on the way out. They didn't say anything, until they'd walked into Oliver's office - - the same corner office that had used to belong to Lionel Luthor, incidentally - - then Oliver turned on him and asked.
"What?"
"Just wondering if you'd found anything yet about - - you know?"
Oliver migrated towards the bar and poured himself a thumbs worth of something expensive, threw it back and shrugged. "I'm working on it. There's nothing stirring out there that I've been able to find yet. You?"
Clark shook his head. "How about Tess? You think she's on to anything?"
Oliver laughed. "Despite appearances, she doesn't share a lot with me."
"You think you'd know if she found him?"
Oliver tilted his head, trying to figure Clark out and Clark refused to let his expression change. "I don't know. Like I said, she's good with her secrets. Honestly, would it be a terrible thing? If she did find him and he just disappeared, it would save everybody a lot of time and effort."
Clark felt his non-expression crack. His fists clenched and there was the audible sound of knuckles popping. "So it would be okay, if she committed a little murder, as long as it saved you some time and effort? How do you even think that?"
Oliver turned his head, looking out the floor to ceiling windows. A muscle in his jaw flinched spasmodically. "I don't know. Sometimes you make the hard choices for the greater good."
"Yeah. That sounds exactly like something Lex would have said. And you'd have condemned him for it."
"So did you," Oliver said, on Clark's retreating back.
And it was true. He had and he would again, if the occasion arose. The difference was, he wasn't prepared to make those sacrifices himself and he never would.
To be continued . . .