Fic: Told Well (Lie to Me)
Title: Told Well
Rating: PG
Pairings: (Apparently-)onesided Loker/Lightman
Warnings: Mild slash, language
Disclaimer: I own precisely nada
Summary: So how does a policy of Radical Honesty come about? Pre-series
Notes: Quote in the cut text is from Mark Twain.
~*~
Eli Loker had been with the Lightman Group for six months, and he hadn't gotten away with a single lie yet.
Fresh out of college, he was well aware of how lucky he was. The job with the Lightman Group was a once in a lifetime opportunity: Cal Lightman was a legend amongst social scientists. Any psychology graduate would have sold their soul for a chance at Eli's job. After landing a job like that he should have been happy, but looking back he supposed he hadn't really thought through exactly what working with these people would mean.
He couldn't lie. It wasn't like they'd even been malicious lies: just the little white lies that grease the wheels of social interaction, like "my car broke down" or "no, your ass doesn't look big in that". It was easier to be around the junior employees, the ones who were less confident reading people, but the big guns - Dr. Foster and especially Dr. Lightman - were downright scary with it.
Eli hadn't often had occasion to talk to them, and frankly he thought he'd be better off keeping it that way. They made him uncomfortable.
His first six months were pretty unpleasant. At college he'd gotten used to being the one who spotted these things, always the winner in any game of poker. To suddenly be around people who could read him like a book was incredibly unnerving.
He figured he had two options. Quit, or come up with a new approach.
That night he went home early and spent a long time thinking about his situation. He couldn't quit - you didn't stumble on gigs like this every day, and he knew he'd been lucky this time. If he walked away from the Lightman Group, he would never get another chance like it again.
The following Monday he was half an hour late for work,something which had become a little more common than his superiors were probably happy with. He tried to sneak in undetected but no, just his luck, he walked past the reception in perfect time to meet Lightman coming the other way.
"You're late," Lightman observed, absolutely unreadable as only the best could be. He cocked his head, added with a touch of sarcasm, "Again."
Time to see just how well his new approach would play. "Yeah, I wanted another ten minutes in bed."
Lightman studied him for what seemed like an eternity, and while before that would have made him nervous, there was something liberating about being completely honest.
An expression of amusement passed across Lightman's face. "Good," he said, and walked away.
And that was that.
Once he had started being honest, he found that the discomfort disappeared and he began to genuinely enjoy his work. He didn't get called out for lying any more, mainly because he'd stopped. It seemed obvious in retrospect. How do you cope with a bunch of human lie detectors? Easy - don't lie.
He didn't regret not figuring it out right away though. His policy of 'radical honesty' required him to say pretty much whatever happened to be on his mind. And while he didn't really have a problem with that any more, it could have been awkward in the beginning.
As first impressions on your new boss go, "a genius, yeah, but no-one told me you were hot!" probably wouldn't have been a winner.
Rating: PG
Pairings: (Apparently-)onesided Loker/Lightman
Warnings: Mild slash, language
Disclaimer: I own precisely nada
Summary: So how does a policy of Radical Honesty come about? Pre-series
Notes: Quote in the cut text is from Mark Twain.
~*~
Eli Loker had been with the Lightman Group for six months, and he hadn't gotten away with a single lie yet.
Fresh out of college, he was well aware of how lucky he was. The job with the Lightman Group was a once in a lifetime opportunity: Cal Lightman was a legend amongst social scientists. Any psychology graduate would have sold their soul for a chance at Eli's job. After landing a job like that he should have been happy, but looking back he supposed he hadn't really thought through exactly what working with these people would mean.
He couldn't lie. It wasn't like they'd even been malicious lies: just the little white lies that grease the wheels of social interaction, like "my car broke down" or "no, your ass doesn't look big in that". It was easier to be around the junior employees, the ones who were less confident reading people, but the big guns - Dr. Foster and especially Dr. Lightman - were downright scary with it.
Eli hadn't often had occasion to talk to them, and frankly he thought he'd be better off keeping it that way. They made him uncomfortable.
His first six months were pretty unpleasant. At college he'd gotten used to being the one who spotted these things, always the winner in any game of poker. To suddenly be around people who could read him like a book was incredibly unnerving.
He figured he had two options. Quit, or come up with a new approach.
That night he went home early and spent a long time thinking about his situation. He couldn't quit - you didn't stumble on gigs like this every day, and he knew he'd been lucky this time. If he walked away from the Lightman Group, he would never get another chance like it again.
The following Monday he was half an hour late for work,something which had become a little more common than his superiors were probably happy with. He tried to sneak in undetected but no, just his luck, he walked past the reception in perfect time to meet Lightman coming the other way.
"You're late," Lightman observed, absolutely unreadable as only the best could be. He cocked his head, added with a touch of sarcasm, "Again."
Time to see just how well his new approach would play. "Yeah, I wanted another ten minutes in bed."
Lightman studied him for what seemed like an eternity, and while before that would have made him nervous, there was something liberating about being completely honest.
An expression of amusement passed across Lightman's face. "Good," he said, and walked away.
And that was that.
Once he had started being honest, he found that the discomfort disappeared and he began to genuinely enjoy his work. He didn't get called out for lying any more, mainly because he'd stopped. It seemed obvious in retrospect. How do you cope with a bunch of human lie detectors? Easy - don't lie.
He didn't regret not figuring it out right away though. His policy of 'radical honesty' required him to say pretty much whatever happened to be on his mind. And while he didn't really have a problem with that any more, it could have been awkward in the beginning.
As first impressions on your new boss go, "a genius, yeah, but no-one told me you were hot!" probably wouldn't have been a winner.