TITLE: Written All Over Your Face
GENRE: Humor
CHARACTERS: Cal, Eli, Gillian
PAIRING: Cal/Gillian
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None
WORDS: 900
SUMMARY: Loker tries a form of blackmailing. Which isn't really blackmailing when everybody already knows your secret.

As if it wasn't already bad enough that an appointment suddenly popped up with a not-so-gentle reminder from his e-mail program while his desk was full with paperwork to do and cases to juggle. By then his mood had already shifted from a four to a seven on the Cal-Lightman-scale-of-unfathomable-annoyance.

No, it wasn't bad enough yet. It went from a seven to an eight when he saw the name Loker. And from an eight to a nine when he saw the words salary negotiations. How did he deserve that?

Loker was as punctual as he could be, even wearing a half-decent tie, swiftly sitting down on the chair in front of his desk. He said nothing, but he already seemed smug about it.

"So?"

Loker cleared his throat and sat up even straighter. "I have rendered outstanding services to this company."

Cal squinted his eyes. "Have you? When?"

He gave him a look. "I took over much more responsibility in the last few months and I think it should be reflected in my salary."

"Responsibility? I still don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"The Coulson case. I handled that on my own and it brought in some very good money for the company. And the FBI training I'm doing with Torres—I think that's great work. In addition to everything else I do, like basically running the research lab you never seem to care about."

Cal just looked at him blankly. "Still don't know how that warrants a pay raise. And how you connected that with the word outstanding. Look up the definition again."

Loker carefully folded his hands. "Come on, Lightman."

"Loker," Cal began and folded his hands in just the same silly way, "the short answer is no. The long answer is fuck no."

They held each other's stare for quite some time, nobody backing off or even thinking about losing. But Loker eventually found his voice again and cleared his throat once more.

"The Lightman Group would've gone down the drain without me. I've been handling a lot more things here since you and Foster started sleeping together and letting some things slide."

Cal had to shake his head in order to get the words out he might have just imagined. Everything suddenly went from a nine to a ten. A very dangerous ten; red, bold and pulsing. "Excuse me?"

Loker remained ghastly calm. "Not that I blame you. I can understand that you have other things on your mind and I'm happy for you. Makes you less insufferable on some days."

"Don't you talk to me like that," Cal warned and an unpleasant and uninvited rush of heat went up to his head. He just hoped that it didn't reflect in his skin color.

"Well, I'm hardly sorry for telling the truth."

"Who knows about this?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody does. It's kind of obvious, really. There's a betting pool about when and how you're going to tell the staff."

Cal just continued looking at him, somehow lost for words and certainly not able to think clearly.

It seems Loker saw his chance coming right then and tried again. "So am I getting the raise?"

But Cal just rolled his chair back behind the computer, ending the eye contact with his employee, yet not being able to end the thoughts running through his head. "We're not having this conversation. I'm actually cutting your salary. I'm halving it with every further second you're staying here in my office. Now go away."

Loker remained seated for a few more seconds, but after some successful ignoring by Cal and him punching the keys on his laptop hard, he finally got up and trotted through the office.

As soon as he was out of the door, Cal opened a new email, clicked on the red exclamation mark, and just wrote two words. Everybody knows.

She answered within a minute. About what?

About us.

Well, what did you expect?

He looked at her words. Really? That was her answer to this ultimate worst case scenario turning into a scary reality? He picked up the phone and called her extension.

"Cal, I really have work to do. The presentation is in half an hour."

"This is all you have to say about that?"

"I told you that we should come clean to everybody and prevent rumors from spreading. You can't expect to hide a fact like this within a company working on uncovering facts that people are hiding. Ironic, eh?"

He shook his head again, but the fog engulfing his thoughts just wouldn't clear. "Loker just waltzed in here and tried to use this very fact in order to get a pay raise. This is serious, Gill."

"I certainly hope so, sweetheart. I mean that's what you told me."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't make fun of me. There's even a betting pool."

"Really?" Now she seemed intrigued. "I hope it's not about us breaking up."

"I can't believe you're so calm about this."

"What are you so worried about?" she asked in return and he could basically hear her smile.

"I'm not worried, I'm appalled."

"Cal, I really need to finish this presentation deck. Let's talk about this later, okay?"

"Okay. We need to figure out a strategy."

"Sure. I'll see you later or do you prefer to not see me in the office at all?" There probably was this nasty grin on her face again.

"Stop making fun of me or I'll become an insider part of this break-up betting pool."

"Right. I'll see you later then. And Cal?"

"Yeah?"

"Give Loker that raise."

THE END