Private SL: I am free and that is why I am lost
Loker was sitting at the kitchen counter, a six pack of what he knew to be Cal's favorite beer sitting untouched as he waited. Emily had let him in, and they'd talked briefly -- that new song, small, meaningless things, until she'd left with a friend, left him there to wait for Cal. Even she had seemed to notice that something was wrong, giving
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He didn't know why Loker was here. He knew he wasn't in on Friday, was aware of it in passing, but hadn't thought anything of it. He'd requested time off, and it had been approved, and that was that. It wasn't like with Gillian, if she took off, he'd know why. Cal and Loker weren't friends, because Cal kept him at arms length, because he was trying to push him to be better, and just like you can't be a parent and a friend, you can't be a boss and a friend, either.
He sized Loker up immediately, sitting at the counter in an expensive suit. It stuck out, because Loker usually dressed like he was just out of college and making it work, nice but not that nice. This suit fit his body. It wasn't off the rack, but hand-tailored. It might not be obvious to everyone, but Cal knew suits, and he knew unusual sizes, and just like Cal was, so was Loker. He'd need the suit brought in around the torso to have it long enough in the arms. The collar and cuffs were undone, tie loose, and as he rounded the island so he could look at him head on, he saw that he was upset. There was a lot going on on his face, but he picked out a bit of anger, maybe some guilt.
And he'd brought his favorite beer.
"I didn't know you were moonlighting delivering beer," he said, gesturing to the six pack and leaning back against the counter, opposite Loker. "If you're making a show of being hard up, you can dream on about asking for a raise. Nice uniform, though."
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The suit was only for family occasions, the one he kept because as much as he wanted to write them off and never have anything to do with them, he still hadn't entirely managed it. His mother would guilt him into it, and he'd grit his teeth, show up, and make it clear that he wasn't one of them, that he didn't want to be there. So he read people, dragged out dirty secrets with a cant of his head, and that sharp tone he sometimes got when he caught people in a lie.
His cousin had punched him in the ribs. It wasn't something he could wear like a battlescar, not yet bruised, but still sensitive, something to how he held his body.
"I thought you could use a drink."
Which was Loker-speak for I do. Only a few months ago, he wouldn't have been playing this game of not saying what he needed, what was on his mind. It perhaps explained why he was such shit at it.
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"You look like you could use it more," he says, and he fishes in the drawer beside him for the bottle opener and comes over to the island and pulls two out by the caps, and he pops one and passes it to Loker before opening his own. He takes a swig of it, and it's cold and perfect and crisp, and he's warming to this impromptu visit already. Beer never failed to pave the way. Which, he was sure, was part of the plan.
"So," he says, leveling a look at Loker that's all questions but nothing specific. He wants to know why he's here, what's up, what's wrong, why the suit, why Cal and not some one of his friends. Unless he doesn't have friends. He might not, actually, now that he thinks about it. "You just wanted to bring me beer and lie about your suit?"
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And somehow that ended him up on Cal's doorstep, still in his suit, and bringing the man's favorite beer. He takes the one that Cal passes to him, taking a long drink like he's needed it for hours. He sets it on the counter, his green eyes looking down at the bottle and there's a self-conscious shrug of his shoulders when Cal points out that he knows he was lying. Not that he expected anything less, but he hates the suit, the only symbol of his family he keeps.
He keeps it for days like today, but that doesn't mean he doesn't hate it any less. "Something like that, yeah." Not really. He's... lost, doesn't even know where to start, and so he goes to Cal because there's that stupid part of him that can't think of anywhere else to go.
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"What's going on?" Maybe direct is best, maybe leaving the question hang is just going to give Loker the room to avoid it.
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He hates lying to Cal, but the other option is to not say anything at all, because somehow, the only way he really knows to be honest was that open-book radical honesty. And he's lost that because no one would believe him anymore anyway.
"Nothing really. Just some crappy boring family occasion." He looks at Cal as he says it, because he's not really trying to deceive him, he's just rattled, can't find the words.
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He'd spell it out for him, all the reasons he knows it's a lie, how he's anything but bored, how it's definitely not nothing, how his face and his body and his suit and hell, even the way he plays with his cuffs betray him. But he won't spell it out for him, because he's not going to insult his intelligence, because Loker knows what Cal can see, or he should anyway.
"You don't get to come into my house and sit here in my kitchen and lie to me," Cal is stern, his lips are pursed, and the tone makes it sound like he's just a few seconds from adding a punishment, or else I'm going to…. But he doesn't. He takes another long swig of his beer and sets it down a little too hard, and looks at Loker, his eyes hard and sharp and annoyed. People lie all the time, but Loker knows better, and he's lying to his face for no reason other than the fact that he wasn't sure what to say. Cal would be happy to listen, to be there for him, to sit and drink and help pass the time, but not if he's going to lie with every breath.
"Keep your mouth shut until you're ready to stop lying. I mean it."
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There's guilt and shame and that heat of affection and it's different from the volatile cocktail that had been playing across his face before. He swallows hard and it makes his adam's apple bob, trying to figure out what to say, if he could say anything. Eli looks up at Cal with a faint flush, looking at him as if the man is asking something that isn't quiet and easy and it's not, whether he knows it or not. But it's Cal and that always matters more.
He's quiet and still for a few long moments, fingers on the bottle, because he knows Cal means it and he doesn't really want to find out what or else he might tack on if he disobeys. Loker was raised as a liar. As a child, it was formed in those subtle things, the way his parents so candidly lied to one another, the way father would promise not to punish him if he told the truth -- and his father never spared punishment, the way his parents . In school, it was for the attention, for being the one that always had the best story, even if they were rarely true. Radical honesty was a choice, and without that concrete a system he slips back into the habits he was raised with.
"Okay."
He says it softly, and his lips thin as he looks at him across the counter. It's easier than it really ought to be, letting Cal push him back into this. Honesty that's so frequently more than anyone wants to know about another person, blatant disregard for social boundaries and niceties. Part of it used to be being trustworthy; but Cal doesn't really trust so much as he knows, and maybe that's just as good.
"My father died. I just got back from the funeral, and there wasn't anyone else I wanted to see. I figured it would go over better if I showed up with beer."
He tilts his bottle toward Cal with a bitter hint of a smile, takes a drink of his beer. There's too much here to say all in one breath, truth that's as much as not omitting the details as it is about not lying. And right now, he doesn't even really know where to start with the rest of it, how to categorize how he feels about it all. And so he leaves it there.
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Then the truth comes, and the tone of his voice says as much as the words do. His father died and he's not mourning, not the way you'd expect. He's upset, that's obvious, and the guilt and shame make sense now, uncomfortable with how he's dealing with this, with what he feels. There was no one else he wanted to see? No other family? It gives a hint at family life that might leave him not mourning his father's death.
Cal's expression is intense, focused on Loker's face, and he nods as Loker holds up the beer. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says, automatically, because it's what you say as much as because he wants to see how Loker reacts to it.
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He says it with a shrug of his shoulders, a shake of his head, and there's confusion on his lips as he looks at Cal. It's honest, volunteered truth because it's the only way he knows to really be truthful: say everything, don't think about it.
"He was an asshole and a criminal and if there was any truth in the justice system they'd have locked him up a long time ago."
Contempt; not just for his father, but at the fact that despite the man being dead, it doesn't change anything, doesn't change how he feels. There's no Disney reconciliation, and he feels strange for the fact that he doesn't even really want there to be. He hadn't called on his deathbed with some change of heart; the only thing his father has left to offer is whatever is in his will, and that will just be more of the same as it always was. Gifts he never really wanted while they ignored him.
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Cal knows what it is to lose a father and not mourn the loss. To almost feel relief at the fight being over, but feel like you're in the wrong for not feeling like society says you should, for not being sad or even trying to pretend. It fucks with your head, that kind of end, everything left on bad terms and with loose ends hanging.
He's projecting, remembering, imagining they're more alike than they probably are. If pushed, Loker might fill in the details. Maybe he wants to talk. Maybe that's part of why he's here.
"Sounds like you might need something more than beer," he's talking about liquor, scotch, something that doesn't buzz so much as it cuts, but maybe he's hinting at something else. His mind drifts as he lets his words hang, briefly musing over other ways to distract. His eyes skim down Loker's torso, what of it he can see over the island. There might be interest in his gaze, but it's cool and he doesn't address it.
"The good die too young and the bad ones always hang on way too bloody long," he comments, eyes flicking up to Loker's face.
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He catches that look, the way that Cal looks him over, but it's cool, and he doesn't quite catch it for what it is. He wants it to be interest so much that it's hard to catch when it is. He's never sure if he's projecting, seeing what he wants instead of what's there. Things between them have been strange since he fucked up, since he first tried to lie to Cal, but it hasn't really changed things. And now he can't, he's said he wouldn't and that means something to Eli, as much as he hopes it means something to Cal.
"Yeah. Stubborn as much as he was a wicked bastard."
He shakes his head, lets his gaze skim over Cal, the angles of his face, those hazel eyes as he takes a drink off of his beer. It would be easy to blame what he says on the beer, but that's not what it was at all. It was why he'd said it the first time, when he'd been the new intern and Cal had been newly divorced. His mind wanders, and like this that means it's on his tongue.
"I still want to have sex with you. I like you."
As if Cal doesn't know.
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He's just watching Loker, lips parted, a grimace of a smile that's not so much a smile but a pause in an expression, a suspension, like he's trying to scent the air and taste what's coming next, what's down below, what Loker's thinking when he looks like that. It drives him mad sometimes, because Loker's fifty-fifty. He's either transparent as glass or so opaque there's not a prayer of knowing, and it's not the radical honesty. It's just… static. Junk, the things Loker hangs up on, need for acceptance, being liked, all the stuff he preoccupies himself with, whatever it is, it clogs Cal's ability to know where he really is underneath. And the rest of the time, he tells him to his face, all of it in gritty uncomfortable details, and all of it drives him mad.
Like now. Like I still want to have sex with you. Cal remembers the first time he said it. It was right at the very beginning, the first bloody day Loker enacted radical fucking honesty. It had been too soon after the divorce for him to even hear that, to even begin to deal with that. How could he deal with that when he hadn't been able to deal with himself?
There's a little passing grin, a flash of teeth, that he lets Loker see. It's amusement. It's calculated. His eyes wander again. Loker fills out that suit nicely, and Cal appreciates the rebellion against the buttons and the tie. Cal always rebels against a suit, and Loker wears that well, too.
His voice is low and his attention comes up as he says the words, "I know." He focuses on his face, finally, flicking over eyebrows, forehead, mouth. He lingers over his mouth.
And this is where it becomes a game. Or maybe something more than a game, something more dangerous, more real, more personal. Cal knows that it's back, the radical honesty is in play, that's what this is, it's what he's doing, he's saying what's on his mind because he hasn't admitted it since then but it's still been on his mind. Cal knows Loker never stopped wanting that, never stopped thinking about him like that.
So now, he's going to push.
"Tell me… just how much do you think about it?" A pause, and he clarifies. "How often?"
He's going to find out where he breaks.
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"A lot. Once a day. Sometimes more. I think about it when I get off most of the time."
Honest and truthful, and this was different. He'd had his radical honesty, but Cal had never pushed at it before, not really, not like this. Not using it to get answers like he was now. His breath quickening a little, slight way that his lips were parted, watching Cal, trying to piece together if the man was just playing him, or if he was actually interested. Pity fuck, maybe? Cal didn't really seem the type for it, not that Loker wouldn't take it if he was. It was more than just sex he wanted, but that was harder to articulate, something he left caged in the vague-but-emotionally-charged I like you.
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"What do you think about doing with me when you're getting off?" he asks it that way so as not to lead, so the question is open enough that Loker will answer honestly. That's not as big of a concern with Loker as it is with people he interrogates, though. He knows Loker will tell the truth, or he won't, and Cal will know that, too, it will be just as telling, lead him in the next direction he wants to take this.
And no, he's not playing him. He's playing with him because he likes a game, but he's definitely interested. And this isn't a pity fuck, because Cal's not that charitable.
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"I think about you fucking me, against a wall, on the counter, in your lap in your desk chair at work.. Or on my knees, sucking you off, your fingers in my hair, holding onto your hips until I can taste you... Lots of things."
His eyes look away as he talks, remembering, and his eyes dilate, a cant to his head, his breathing a little rough as he gives away his secrets. He's thought about Cal like this, thought about it a lot, he generalizes not to conceal but because there's a very extensive list of things and places he's thought about.
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