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Title: Exploding Puppies
Series: Exploding Puppies
Fandom: Punditslash
Pairing: Anderson Cooper/Keith Olbermann
Rating: PG, maybe?
Word Count: 657
Summary: A story about figurative demons and literal puppies.
Notes: From 2008. My first pundit fic. I'm still pretty fond of it.
In Anderson's head, there is sometimes screaming. Sometimes explosions. Sometimes not much of anything but silence. An eerie stillness beneath the surface of his thoughts. Part of him figures that this is probably fairly normal, like how everyone has their demons and these are his. Screaming. Exploding. Dead silent. Demons. Another part of him thinks, huh. Not so much.
Mostly he tends to agree with that first side because doing otherwise might mean he'll have to do something else, for a while, and he's not sure if he can handle that.
He also sometimes has this dream – about every couple of weeks, maybe. It's about a street pretty much like any other. Gray and claustrophobic when crowded. Grayer and agoraphobic when empty. It's empty in his dream. Every single time. But he knows it hasn't always been this way. The sidewalk in this dream street is sparkling with shards of broken glass that reflect his gaze back to him when he looks into them. And then they start looking back. He's not sure, can't be sure, but suddenly their eyes are the wrong color.
It's then that he realizes that the sidewalk, though empty, is alive and it watches him as he walks down it, towards sanity, towards safety, towards something. . . To something that he is, in this dream, thinking very hard about, but when he wakes up, years later, he still hasn't reached it and he has no idea what it is.
One day, after he hasn't dreamed it for a while – when he's about due for it to happen, again – he gets a hug from a stranger. She is mostly pretty and painfully young and he catches her puppy when it runs away.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, when she reaches him, flushed and panting from a sprint after that treacherous animal. “Thank God. Thank you.” Her eyes aren't any special color or shade but they're wide and honest and they gleam with gratitude and tears left over from abated terror. “Thank you so much.” She then hugs him very tight around the neck, squishing the squirming puppy between them so it gives a startled yip. “Thank you. I owe you everything.”
“It's nothing,” he says, a little bit startled. And then, “You're welcome.” He shifts his burden to one hand and pats her arm with the other.
She takes her dog and gazes into his eyes. Her lips are dry and she smiles so wide they crack. She thanks Anderson twice more, almost bowing to him, and then takes leave, hugging her puppy close. She's intercepted by friends a hundred feet away and gestures back to him, practically bouncing with glee. One of them pauses as the others move on and gives him a casual but sincere salute from afar. Bemused, he returns it and watches as she turns to follow her companions in a flap of black overcoat.
Anderson goes, too, soon after this and, as he strips off his outer clothing, he sees a message flashing on the machine. He pauses, half in and half out of his jacket, to listen to it.
It's Keith Olbermann. They had a strange, charged lunch together, a couple of weeks ago. It had been the day after he'd had that dream, last, and the force of Keith's gaze had made him uneasy.
Keith wants to meet for dinner. His treat. Call him back. The machine clicks off and the determined finality of the beep doesn't sound the slightest bit out of step with his tone.
Anderson stands still for a long time.
He thinks of explosions. Of puppies. Of eyes full of warmth and water and pure emotion, gazing back at him from bits of shattered glass. He thinks of screaming and of silence and decides that if ever he needed to get out and do something it's now. He shrugs his jacket back on and checks the clock.
He calls Keith back.
Series: Exploding Puppies
Fandom: Punditslash
Pairing: Anderson Cooper/Keith Olbermann
Rating: PG, maybe?
Word Count: 657
Summary: A story about figurative demons and literal puppies.
Notes: From 2008. My first pundit fic. I'm still pretty fond of it.
In Anderson's head, there is sometimes screaming. Sometimes explosions. Sometimes not much of anything but silence. An eerie stillness beneath the surface of his thoughts. Part of him figures that this is probably fairly normal, like how everyone has their demons and these are his. Screaming. Exploding. Dead silent. Demons. Another part of him thinks, huh. Not so much.
Mostly he tends to agree with that first side because doing otherwise might mean he'll have to do something else, for a while, and he's not sure if he can handle that.
He also sometimes has this dream – about every couple of weeks, maybe. It's about a street pretty much like any other. Gray and claustrophobic when crowded. Grayer and agoraphobic when empty. It's empty in his dream. Every single time. But he knows it hasn't always been this way. The sidewalk in this dream street is sparkling with shards of broken glass that reflect his gaze back to him when he looks into them. And then they start looking back. He's not sure, can't be sure, but suddenly their eyes are the wrong color.
It's then that he realizes that the sidewalk, though empty, is alive and it watches him as he walks down it, towards sanity, towards safety, towards something. . . To something that he is, in this dream, thinking very hard about, but when he wakes up, years later, he still hasn't reached it and he has no idea what it is.
One day, after he hasn't dreamed it for a while – when he's about due for it to happen, again – he gets a hug from a stranger. She is mostly pretty and painfully young and he catches her puppy when it runs away.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, when she reaches him, flushed and panting from a sprint after that treacherous animal. “Thank God. Thank you.” Her eyes aren't any special color or shade but they're wide and honest and they gleam with gratitude and tears left over from abated terror. “Thank you so much.” She then hugs him very tight around the neck, squishing the squirming puppy between them so it gives a startled yip. “Thank you. I owe you everything.”
“It's nothing,” he says, a little bit startled. And then, “You're welcome.” He shifts his burden to one hand and pats her arm with the other.
She takes her dog and gazes into his eyes. Her lips are dry and she smiles so wide they crack. She thanks Anderson twice more, almost bowing to him, and then takes leave, hugging her puppy close. She's intercepted by friends a hundred feet away and gestures back to him, practically bouncing with glee. One of them pauses as the others move on and gives him a casual but sincere salute from afar. Bemused, he returns it and watches as she turns to follow her companions in a flap of black overcoat.
Anderson goes, too, soon after this and, as he strips off his outer clothing, he sees a message flashing on the machine. He pauses, half in and half out of his jacket, to listen to it.
It's Keith Olbermann. They had a strange, charged lunch together, a couple of weeks ago. It had been the day after he'd had that dream, last, and the force of Keith's gaze had made him uneasy.
Keith wants to meet for dinner. His treat. Call him back. The machine clicks off and the determined finality of the beep doesn't sound the slightest bit out of step with his tone.
Anderson stands still for a long time.
He thinks of explosions. Of puppies. Of eyes full of warmth and water and pure emotion, gazing back at him from bits of shattered glass. He thinks of screaming and of silence and decides that if ever he needed to get out and do something it's now. He shrugs his jacket back on and checks the clock.
He calls Keith back.