[Backfromthedead] Ficlet: April 1
His gifts come with stories.
Once, as a much younger man with a business to run that so often took precedence over his wife and young son, a long line of secretaries and assistants had been tasked with buying presents: birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases, graduations... On many occasions, he had had no idea what had actually been purchased and so carefully wrapped before Lillian or Lex had ripped open the colorful paper. On most occasions, he had been just as surprised - and delighted - as they had been.
The first time it had happened, he had genuinely intended to seek out just the right gift for Lillian, to scour the stores until something seemed perfect, but meetings and conferences and phone calls had intervened. So, in order to assuage his conscience just a little, even though she apparently loved the generic, impersonal item his assistant had found, he had held her in his arms and plucked a story out of thin air.
Lex had been more impressed - first by the stories, then, when he grew up a little, just how well his father could lie. "It's just a book," he'd say, poking doubtfully at whatever tome he'd been given. "Bet it's not even a first edition. And it wasn't owned by any cowboy..." Over time, Lionel suspected that his assistant, knowing his habit of weaving fairytales, tried to find the least mystical objects she possibly could. One year it had been a box. Another, a plastic ray gun.
Still, while Lillian was alive, while Lex was young and impressionable, and while Lionel loved both of them more than his work, birthdays were always a time for stories.
These days… Well, he hasn't had any birthdays worth celebrating for years. Lillian had died. Lex had taken to throwing his gifts away rather publicly. Lucas… had changed his address and disappeared. And no one has given him anything either, with the notable exception of Martha Kent. Perhaps she had thought of them as ridiculously simple and cheap gestures - a bonsai tree one year, a newly-published biography another - but he had been genuinely touched, giving the tree pride of place in his office, and reading the book as soon as he had the time. Although Martha has never been rich in the time that he's known her, she's always known precisely what to give - the simplest things that can touch a person's heart.
If only he knew what to get her in return.
In the past, he could have given her diamonds, cars, a month's vacation to a private island. Today, although he'll never be destitute, he's not quite the billionaire he once was, and too many of the things he wants to give her come with rather awkward connotations. Unlike his younger days, he now has the time to roam the stores of the city, looking for that unique, personal gift. But now that he is investing thought in the process, now that he cares, it seems exponentially harder. He even calls up Sylvia, his old assistant, looking for advice. She's sympathetic, but she's used to giving corporate gifts, not that perfect, exquisite item to a lover. A partner.
He goes to jewelry stores and finds himself looking at engagement rings, although he knows that's not a possibility. Grand, sweeping gestures like buying a house also seem doomed to failure - they're a couple, now, and Martha is firmly of the opinion that couples should make these decisions together. It would be unfair not to consult her.
So he's left browsing bookstores, wondering about finding something online, puzzling over how it can be so difficult to find a gift for the woman he knows best in the world.
In the end, it's with resignation and a little embarrassment that he opts for simplicity: a bouquet of spring flowers, a box of chocolates, and a simple gold pendant in the shape of a dove. It's not expensive, by his standards, but he'd kept returning to it, thinking that there was something about it that was so very her.
He sends all three items to her over the course of the work day - of course, Martha being Martha, she had refused to go so far as to actually acknowledge the existence of her birthday by taking the day off. But he'd put champagne in the fridge, arranged candles around the lounge, and tried not to worry too much as he'd waited.
The phone rings.
"This is beautiful," Martha says before he has the chance to even say hello. "I just left the most, oh, frustrating meeting ever, you wouldn't believe, and my assistant starts telling me what a wonderful boyfriend I have."
Lionel settles back on the couch, grinning. "Well, I wouldn't disagree with that."
"We've just put the flowers in water, and I hope you don't mind, but the chocolates are disappearing already…"
"That's all right, I do have to watch my figure."
If she could nudge him in the ribs over the phone, she probably would. "So I just have one thing to be briefed on, and then I think I really have to come home. Is it still the flu season? I think... Well, it's almost Easter. Hardly anyone's even here. And I'm sure I must have some red-haired, blue-eyed Jews in my family somewhere back..."
"Undoubtedly."
He can hear her smiling. "Don't go anywhere, mister. I'll be along to thank you properly in about an hour."
She arrives, ninety minutes later and rather more flustered than she'd probably intended, arms stacked high with papers. "I know I promised," she says as soon as Lionel opens the door for her, taking the files from her hands. "And the weekend will be just us, but I..."
He closes the door, and locks it, and finds her staring at the candles. In just that moment, she's somehow gone from the bustling, stressful world of her senatorial position to the calm darkness of their apartment. He listens to her breathe. "The champagne is ice cold," he says, coming up behind her to take her coat. "I would have cooked, but... I thought perhaps you might not want a heavy meal tonight."
She smiles at him in the candlelight. "Champagne and chocolates, Mr. Luthor? I might think that you're trying too hard."
"I can never try hard enough," he responds, and soon there's a satisfying pop, and the sound of champagne flowing freely into two tall glasses.
***
"It's beautiful," she says, moonlight reflecting from the gold pendant in her hand. "It's not... what I thought you might get. Not that I thought you'd get anything, but..."
"As though I'd let you forget your birthday," he tells her, kissing her hair, holding her tight in his arms. "I wish I could have done more." Perhaps next year, the house, or even the engagement ring, won't seem like such fantastical ideas.
"You..." She turns to him, twisting in his arms so that she can kiss him properly. "You really don't understand how much it means to me to have you here, to have someone do this for me... Lionel, last year I did forget, and I don't mean as a joke. I had a bill to prepare, I was so anxious about everything, and it went completely out of my head until Clark phoned. It just... You'd died just a few weeks before, and I couldn't help but wonder what we might have done, if I could have persuaded you to take the Luthorcorp jet out to see me, if you'd finally have the courage to kiss me, because I knew I'd chicken out..."
His lips press softly to hers as he pulls the covers over them, soft and warm. "I'm here now. And for every birthday you'll ever have."
He'd meant to tell her a story, the biblical tale of the dove flying from the ark in search of a new world, tinted with humor and inspiration, and not a little analogy with the situation he had been in before he had found her again. It had meant to be an apology for how little he had given her, and a promise of more, but as she hugs him tightly, naked skin to naked skin, no words come. He understands, now, that she already knows them all.
Once, as a much younger man with a business to run that so often took precedence over his wife and young son, a long line of secretaries and assistants had been tasked with buying presents: birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases, graduations... On many occasions, he had had no idea what had actually been purchased and so carefully wrapped before Lillian or Lex had ripped open the colorful paper. On most occasions, he had been just as surprised - and delighted - as they had been.
The first time it had happened, he had genuinely intended to seek out just the right gift for Lillian, to scour the stores until something seemed perfect, but meetings and conferences and phone calls had intervened. So, in order to assuage his conscience just a little, even though she apparently loved the generic, impersonal item his assistant had found, he had held her in his arms and plucked a story out of thin air.
Lex had been more impressed - first by the stories, then, when he grew up a little, just how well his father could lie. "It's just a book," he'd say, poking doubtfully at whatever tome he'd been given. "Bet it's not even a first edition. And it wasn't owned by any cowboy..." Over time, Lionel suspected that his assistant, knowing his habit of weaving fairytales, tried to find the least mystical objects she possibly could. One year it had been a box. Another, a plastic ray gun.
Still, while Lillian was alive, while Lex was young and impressionable, and while Lionel loved both of them more than his work, birthdays were always a time for stories.
These days… Well, he hasn't had any birthdays worth celebrating for years. Lillian had died. Lex had taken to throwing his gifts away rather publicly. Lucas… had changed his address and disappeared. And no one has given him anything either, with the notable exception of Martha Kent. Perhaps she had thought of them as ridiculously simple and cheap gestures - a bonsai tree one year, a newly-published biography another - but he had been genuinely touched, giving the tree pride of place in his office, and reading the book as soon as he had the time. Although Martha has never been rich in the time that he's known her, she's always known precisely what to give - the simplest things that can touch a person's heart.
If only he knew what to get her in return.
In the past, he could have given her diamonds, cars, a month's vacation to a private island. Today, although he'll never be destitute, he's not quite the billionaire he once was, and too many of the things he wants to give her come with rather awkward connotations. Unlike his younger days, he now has the time to roam the stores of the city, looking for that unique, personal gift. But now that he is investing thought in the process, now that he cares, it seems exponentially harder. He even calls up Sylvia, his old assistant, looking for advice. She's sympathetic, but she's used to giving corporate gifts, not that perfect, exquisite item to a lover. A partner.
He goes to jewelry stores and finds himself looking at engagement rings, although he knows that's not a possibility. Grand, sweeping gestures like buying a house also seem doomed to failure - they're a couple, now, and Martha is firmly of the opinion that couples should make these decisions together. It would be unfair not to consult her.
So he's left browsing bookstores, wondering about finding something online, puzzling over how it can be so difficult to find a gift for the woman he knows best in the world.
In the end, it's with resignation and a little embarrassment that he opts for simplicity: a bouquet of spring flowers, a box of chocolates, and a simple gold pendant in the shape of a dove. It's not expensive, by his standards, but he'd kept returning to it, thinking that there was something about it that was so very her.
He sends all three items to her over the course of the work day - of course, Martha being Martha, she had refused to go so far as to actually acknowledge the existence of her birthday by taking the day off. But he'd put champagne in the fridge, arranged candles around the lounge, and tried not to worry too much as he'd waited.
The phone rings.
"This is beautiful," Martha says before he has the chance to even say hello. "I just left the most, oh, frustrating meeting ever, you wouldn't believe, and my assistant starts telling me what a wonderful boyfriend I have."
Lionel settles back on the couch, grinning. "Well, I wouldn't disagree with that."
"We've just put the flowers in water, and I hope you don't mind, but the chocolates are disappearing already…"
"That's all right, I do have to watch my figure."
If she could nudge him in the ribs over the phone, she probably would. "So I just have one thing to be briefed on, and then I think I really have to come home. Is it still the flu season? I think... Well, it's almost Easter. Hardly anyone's even here. And I'm sure I must have some red-haired, blue-eyed Jews in my family somewhere back..."
"Undoubtedly."
He can hear her smiling. "Don't go anywhere, mister. I'll be along to thank you properly in about an hour."
She arrives, ninety minutes later and rather more flustered than she'd probably intended, arms stacked high with papers. "I know I promised," she says as soon as Lionel opens the door for her, taking the files from her hands. "And the weekend will be just us, but I..."
He closes the door, and locks it, and finds her staring at the candles. In just that moment, she's somehow gone from the bustling, stressful world of her senatorial position to the calm darkness of their apartment. He listens to her breathe. "The champagne is ice cold," he says, coming up behind her to take her coat. "I would have cooked, but... I thought perhaps you might not want a heavy meal tonight."
She smiles at him in the candlelight. "Champagne and chocolates, Mr. Luthor? I might think that you're trying too hard."
"I can never try hard enough," he responds, and soon there's a satisfying pop, and the sound of champagne flowing freely into two tall glasses.
***
"It's beautiful," she says, moonlight reflecting from the gold pendant in her hand. "It's not... what I thought you might get. Not that I thought you'd get anything, but..."
"As though I'd let you forget your birthday," he tells her, kissing her hair, holding her tight in his arms. "I wish I could have done more." Perhaps next year, the house, or even the engagement ring, won't seem like such fantastical ideas.
"You..." She turns to him, twisting in his arms so that she can kiss him properly. "You really don't understand how much it means to me to have you here, to have someone do this for me... Lionel, last year I did forget, and I don't mean as a joke. I had a bill to prepare, I was so anxious about everything, and it went completely out of my head until Clark phoned. It just... You'd died just a few weeks before, and I couldn't help but wonder what we might have done, if I could have persuaded you to take the Luthorcorp jet out to see me, if you'd finally have the courage to kiss me, because I knew I'd chicken out..."
His lips press softly to hers as he pulls the covers over them, soft and warm. "I'm here now. And for every birthday you'll ever have."
He'd meant to tell her a story, the biblical tale of the dove flying from the ark in search of a new world, tinted with humor and inspiration, and not a little analogy with the situation he had been in before he had found her again. It had meant to be an apology for how little he had given her, and a promise of more, but as she hugs him tightly, naked skin to naked skin, no words come. He understands, now, that she already knows them all.