scallops!
So I'm making Pan Seared Scallops for dinner tonight. This will be my second real venture into making a proper dinner, and uh...wish me luck! Sounds yummy, though.
Everyone is sick today. I check my flist and like, everybody and their mom is sick. It's been wet and dreary and raining all day here, so I'm surprised I haven't caught anything yet. *crosses fingers*
I have so much homework/studying I should be doing. But I have to cook! And alas, visit the store.
Advertising is going to kick my ass. And so is Spanish, even though I hate that class. The instructor annoys the hell out of me, too.
I'll stop whining now.
You know today at work I moved packages of paper. Yep. Ah, manual labor, how I loathe thee.
It was balmy, the shores of wherever he stood. He had walked after his Porsche ran out of gas. His feet were sore and his nice shoes scuffed. The sweat sticking his shirt to his back was cooling as an evening breeze blew in along the tide. His jacket had been left miles behind, crumpled somewhere in the sand.
The breakers were small this time of the year.
Lex didn’t know what he was doing, hadn’t known for a good many hours now, and chalked it up to another bout of insanity caused by maybe a tampered martini at the party he had attended earlier. A social gathering of Metropolis elites, and he hadn’t wanted to be there one bit. He was getting too old for socializing. Maybe he could just lock himself up in a high tower and ring a bell every once in a while, maybe that would be less stressful.
Maybe he could disappear and wait forever for someone who would never come to his rescue again, hating every second because he was weak in his hope.
Every once in a while, he allowed himself to collapse like so in private. He was becoming maudlin, a dangerous state to be in near a large body of water. The stars were coming out. Twinkle, twinkle, twinkling like the eyes of a girl he once knew, of a boy he used to worship in his own little way. The irony was that no one he had ever cared about had stayed with him to see things through, from thick to thin, for better or worse, till death do they part.
And maybe to them, Lex was dead.
He wondered if they thought the person they saw in the tabloids was the real Lex now, and if he’d lived so long in his own charade that he’d become that person. A sensational party, another multi-million dollar acquisition, a minor fluke in plans for world-domination but it’s all right, he wasn’t trying to do that anyway, really. He laughed it off like spilt champagne and simply put on another suit.
Would saying his name make him feel any better?
“Clark.” Breathed like a curse, the wind picked it up and lifted it away before it could linger on his lips. There were so many things Lex wished he could’ve done differently. Maybe if he hadn’t signed that deal and written off another piece of his heart, or maybe if he hadn’t driven that Porsche that day, maybe if he’d driven another car with better brakes or left his cell phone at the mansion. Things might be different. He liked to think there was another path, because all that destiny crap was crap, after all. He hated the word. It had many dimensions, many angles, and the one side that Lex chose had cost him one of the most precious acquisitions ever.
“There are no regrets,” Lionel once told him. “There are only lies that we tell ourselves to deliver us from our misery.”
Maybe the old man was right. Clark would probably hate him no matter which destiny he embraced. Lana would probably still hate herself for having loved him. Lex was beginning to think there was no such thing as the good life for Luthors.
Was the shadow of the name, and not just his father, that hard to overcome? Even if he’d been good and honest, they would’ve tried to twist his words into something they weren’t. The suspicion would still be there in Lana’s tear-filled eyes, big as an owl’s, and Clark’s accusing glare that never once did make Lex flinch. He laughed the first time, and smiled every time after that. Like Clark knew who Lex really was and Lex couldn’t get over how wrong he was.
The biggest misunderstood thing in Smallville had been Lex Luthor. It was no different now in Metropolis, except maybe he was becoming that mistaken thing.
Lex lived with his demons ever since he was a child and killing them now would be like amputating a part of his body. He was afraid that he would no longer function as he was supposed to. And what would he be then but just an empty shell of someone he once knew how to be, but no longer could remember.
Lex gazed at the ever-blackening water. There was emptiness here full of silence, and solidarity in the silence. A calming balm to his numb mind and tired body, the wind blew in strong gusts along the shore, kicking up sand into his eyes. Lex wiped his face like a young, redheaded child. He was beyond maudlin now and deep into self-pity. He told himself he’d given up pity long ago. Maybe it was coming back to haunt him.
That was when, eerily, a strangely harsh gust of wind tried to keel him over. Lex knew before he heard the feet trudging in the sand that Clark had arrived. It wasn’t so much a surprise but a surreal moment.
“I heard you left the biggest corporate party of the year. I was a little worried.”
Lex turned his head and looked at the man the boy had become. It’d been a while since they last saw each other. “I was beginning to lose hope.”
Clark’s face remained impassive as it always was, and Lex wished at that moment that he could’ve punched him so hard his bones would’ve shattered. But that would never happen. Clark doesn’t feel pain like us, thought Lex. It was a tactic Lex used when he felt vulnerable, to clearly define Clark as ‘other’. Sometimes, it would work.
“I’m not here to save you from drowning yourself, if that’s what you mean. I came to make sure you weren’t plotting something big and irrevocably bad. The party could’ve been a distraction.”
Lex smiled. The sadness in his heart, he couldn’t express. The barrier between truth and lies was too thick there. “You think you know me so well. But did you ever know anyone, Clark? Did you know Lana? You thought you knew her so well, too. And look what happened.”
Clark didn’t flinch or back away. He didn’t huff indignantly, either. He merely stood and his eyes remained hard, as cold and immovable as the Fortress that Lex had been studying, as unyieldingly good and resilient.
Lex didn’t know why he was bringing Lana up. He was dredging up all of his ghosts, it seemed.
“Lana was my friend before she ever fell in love with you. It’s easy to fall for someone when they feed you sweet nothings and lies.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you,” Lex said, not caring at all what came out of his mouth. He didn’t know when he’d see Clark again and he was tired of Clark not knowing that he knew.
“Admit it, Clark. You loved me too, at one point.”
And Clark’s eyes changed, ever so slightly.
“I never loved you.” Clark spat, his voice suddenly as heavy as lead.
Lex felt himself sway, just a little. Another lie that he had no more patience to argue with. Smiling at Clark, he could feel the bonds of years’ weight unraveling. Lex wouldn’t lie now if his life depended on it. He owed himself at least that much.
“There was a time when I had love for you. I don’t carry that love anymore, Clark. It was like a disease that I finally overcame. It held me back – it held me to Smallville and the procurement of good. It made me a different person, and that person is gone now. I don’t think I’ll miss him much.” Lex smiled sadly, but Clark would only see what he wanted to see. Bitterness and deception, another ploy to play with Clark’s head. The evil megalomaniac – which was partly true – who never had a real heart.
Clark looked away, swallowing. His cheeks were becoming flushed. Lex took note of the hue and the cornered look in his eyes, wondering if he was finally ready to say goodbye to his obsession of many, many years.
When Clark remained silent, Lex decided to push him further. How far before Superman reared his self-righteous head?
“You know what obsession is, Clark. It started out as an obsession and then I realized how deep I was in. Like the way you were obsessed with Lana and then you fell in love with her. Isn’t it strange, how we’re all connected by the lies and the obsessions we build? Lana only fell in love with me after I told her everything I knew about you – everything – and before then she was simply looking for a sympathetic shoulder and someone who was as hurt by you as she was.” Lex paused and waited for a reaction. Clark still would not look at him. The moon made his face starkly pale, his lashes shadows underneath his eyes.
A moment later, out of nowhere, something caught Clark’s attention. His head cocked to one side as if he were listening to something in the distance. His eyes widened, an expression of frantic concern covering his face.
“I have to go, Lex. I – I have to go,” he turned, looked back once, and suddenly he was gone as if he was never there at all.
Later, while sitting in his limo that he’d called to pick him up, his driver locating him thanks to the GPS chip inside his cell phone, Lex received a call from his office checking to see if he was all right. The party had been bombed by a group of extreme nature conservationists. Lex could’ve almost laughed if it weren’t for the sobering encounter with Clark. His mood hadn’t gotten any better.
And then his cell rang again, the loud chirp shattering the lulling drone of the roadside.
“Lex.”
Lex couldn’t suppress the look of surprise on his face.
“I need your help – I can’t speak very lo-.” The line went dead.
Lex knew the moment he heard Clark’s voice. Clark was in trouble.
For a split second, he couldn’t help but feel impassive. Like when the tornado tore apart the mansion and Lionel was staring up at him from beneath the rubble, when he hesitated and debated, when he knew he was about to choose yet another piece of his destiny. Would he choose correctly?
“Consider it my last favor.”
I said I would study before I started cooking but that seriously isn't going to happen. Off to buy scallops.
Everyone is sick today. I check my flist and like, everybody and their mom is sick. It's been wet and dreary and raining all day here, so I'm surprised I haven't caught anything yet. *crosses fingers*
I have so much homework/studying I should be doing. But I have to cook! And alas, visit the store.
Advertising is going to kick my ass. And so is Spanish, even though I hate that class. The instructor annoys the hell out of me, too.
I'll stop whining now.
You know today at work I moved packages of paper. Yep. Ah, manual labor, how I loathe thee.
It was balmy, the shores of wherever he stood. He had walked after his Porsche ran out of gas. His feet were sore and his nice shoes scuffed. The sweat sticking his shirt to his back was cooling as an evening breeze blew in along the tide. His jacket had been left miles behind, crumpled somewhere in the sand.
The breakers were small this time of the year.
Lex didn’t know what he was doing, hadn’t known for a good many hours now, and chalked it up to another bout of insanity caused by maybe a tampered martini at the party he had attended earlier. A social gathering of Metropolis elites, and he hadn’t wanted to be there one bit. He was getting too old for socializing. Maybe he could just lock himself up in a high tower and ring a bell every once in a while, maybe that would be less stressful.
Maybe he could disappear and wait forever for someone who would never come to his rescue again, hating every second because he was weak in his hope.
Every once in a while, he allowed himself to collapse like so in private. He was becoming maudlin, a dangerous state to be in near a large body of water. The stars were coming out. Twinkle, twinkle, twinkling like the eyes of a girl he once knew, of a boy he used to worship in his own little way. The irony was that no one he had ever cared about had stayed with him to see things through, from thick to thin, for better or worse, till death do they part.
And maybe to them, Lex was dead.
He wondered if they thought the person they saw in the tabloids was the real Lex now, and if he’d lived so long in his own charade that he’d become that person. A sensational party, another multi-million dollar acquisition, a minor fluke in plans for world-domination but it’s all right, he wasn’t trying to do that anyway, really. He laughed it off like spilt champagne and simply put on another suit.
Would saying his name make him feel any better?
“Clark.” Breathed like a curse, the wind picked it up and lifted it away before it could linger on his lips. There were so many things Lex wished he could’ve done differently. Maybe if he hadn’t signed that deal and written off another piece of his heart, or maybe if he hadn’t driven that Porsche that day, maybe if he’d driven another car with better brakes or left his cell phone at the mansion. Things might be different. He liked to think there was another path, because all that destiny crap was crap, after all. He hated the word. It had many dimensions, many angles, and the one side that Lex chose had cost him one of the most precious acquisitions ever.
“There are no regrets,” Lionel once told him. “There are only lies that we tell ourselves to deliver us from our misery.”
Maybe the old man was right. Clark would probably hate him no matter which destiny he embraced. Lana would probably still hate herself for having loved him. Lex was beginning to think there was no such thing as the good life for Luthors.
Was the shadow of the name, and not just his father, that hard to overcome? Even if he’d been good and honest, they would’ve tried to twist his words into something they weren’t. The suspicion would still be there in Lana’s tear-filled eyes, big as an owl’s, and Clark’s accusing glare that never once did make Lex flinch. He laughed the first time, and smiled every time after that. Like Clark knew who Lex really was and Lex couldn’t get over how wrong he was.
The biggest misunderstood thing in Smallville had been Lex Luthor. It was no different now in Metropolis, except maybe he was becoming that mistaken thing.
Lex lived with his demons ever since he was a child and killing them now would be like amputating a part of his body. He was afraid that he would no longer function as he was supposed to. And what would he be then but just an empty shell of someone he once knew how to be, but no longer could remember.
Lex gazed at the ever-blackening water. There was emptiness here full of silence, and solidarity in the silence. A calming balm to his numb mind and tired body, the wind blew in strong gusts along the shore, kicking up sand into his eyes. Lex wiped his face like a young, redheaded child. He was beyond maudlin now and deep into self-pity. He told himself he’d given up pity long ago. Maybe it was coming back to haunt him.
That was when, eerily, a strangely harsh gust of wind tried to keel him over. Lex knew before he heard the feet trudging in the sand that Clark had arrived. It wasn’t so much a surprise but a surreal moment.
“I heard you left the biggest corporate party of the year. I was a little worried.”
Lex turned his head and looked at the man the boy had become. It’d been a while since they last saw each other. “I was beginning to lose hope.”
Clark’s face remained impassive as it always was, and Lex wished at that moment that he could’ve punched him so hard his bones would’ve shattered. But that would never happen. Clark doesn’t feel pain like us, thought Lex. It was a tactic Lex used when he felt vulnerable, to clearly define Clark as ‘other’. Sometimes, it would work.
“I’m not here to save you from drowning yourself, if that’s what you mean. I came to make sure you weren’t plotting something big and irrevocably bad. The party could’ve been a distraction.”
Lex smiled. The sadness in his heart, he couldn’t express. The barrier between truth and lies was too thick there. “You think you know me so well. But did you ever know anyone, Clark? Did you know Lana? You thought you knew her so well, too. And look what happened.”
Clark didn’t flinch or back away. He didn’t huff indignantly, either. He merely stood and his eyes remained hard, as cold and immovable as the Fortress that Lex had been studying, as unyieldingly good and resilient.
Lex didn’t know why he was bringing Lana up. He was dredging up all of his ghosts, it seemed.
“Lana was my friend before she ever fell in love with you. It’s easy to fall for someone when they feed you sweet nothings and lies.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you,” Lex said, not caring at all what came out of his mouth. He didn’t know when he’d see Clark again and he was tired of Clark not knowing that he knew.
“Admit it, Clark. You loved me too, at one point.”
And Clark’s eyes changed, ever so slightly.
“I never loved you.” Clark spat, his voice suddenly as heavy as lead.
Lex felt himself sway, just a little. Another lie that he had no more patience to argue with. Smiling at Clark, he could feel the bonds of years’ weight unraveling. Lex wouldn’t lie now if his life depended on it. He owed himself at least that much.
“There was a time when I had love for you. I don’t carry that love anymore, Clark. It was like a disease that I finally overcame. It held me back – it held me to Smallville and the procurement of good. It made me a different person, and that person is gone now. I don’t think I’ll miss him much.” Lex smiled sadly, but Clark would only see what he wanted to see. Bitterness and deception, another ploy to play with Clark’s head. The evil megalomaniac – which was partly true – who never had a real heart.
Clark looked away, swallowing. His cheeks were becoming flushed. Lex took note of the hue and the cornered look in his eyes, wondering if he was finally ready to say goodbye to his obsession of many, many years.
When Clark remained silent, Lex decided to push him further. How far before Superman reared his self-righteous head?
“You know what obsession is, Clark. It started out as an obsession and then I realized how deep I was in. Like the way you were obsessed with Lana and then you fell in love with her. Isn’t it strange, how we’re all connected by the lies and the obsessions we build? Lana only fell in love with me after I told her everything I knew about you – everything – and before then she was simply looking for a sympathetic shoulder and someone who was as hurt by you as she was.” Lex paused and waited for a reaction. Clark still would not look at him. The moon made his face starkly pale, his lashes shadows underneath his eyes.
A moment later, out of nowhere, something caught Clark’s attention. His head cocked to one side as if he were listening to something in the distance. His eyes widened, an expression of frantic concern covering his face.
“I have to go, Lex. I – I have to go,” he turned, looked back once, and suddenly he was gone as if he was never there at all.
Later, while sitting in his limo that he’d called to pick him up, his driver locating him thanks to the GPS chip inside his cell phone, Lex received a call from his office checking to see if he was all right. The party had been bombed by a group of extreme nature conservationists. Lex could’ve almost laughed if it weren’t for the sobering encounter with Clark. His mood hadn’t gotten any better.
And then his cell rang again, the loud chirp shattering the lulling drone of the roadside.
“Lex.”
Lex couldn’t suppress the look of surprise on his face.
“I need your help – I can’t speak very lo-.” The line went dead.
Lex knew the moment he heard Clark’s voice. Clark was in trouble.
For a split second, he couldn’t help but feel impassive. Like when the tornado tore apart the mansion and Lionel was staring up at him from beneath the rubble, when he hesitated and debated, when he knew he was about to choose yet another piece of his destiny. Would he choose correctly?
“Consider it my last favor.”
I said I would study before I started cooking but that seriously isn't going to happen. Off to buy scallops.