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Title: Shatterproof
Series: Exploding Puppies, sort of
Fandom: Punditslash
Pairing: Anderson Cooper/Keith Olbermann
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 932
Summary: Anderson gets depressed, sometimes.
Notes: Contains references to the Exploding Puppies trilogy. Precursor to as-yet unfinished Shatter, in which the nervous breakdown I kept threatening Anderson with actually happens.
When Anderson gets depressed (and he does get depressed, deeply and profoundly so) he does it quietly. He doesn't cry constantly, though he says he often feels like it, and he doesn't break down or do himself injury or starve himself, as are some of the standard responses to depression, in Keith's experience. What he does do is go a little bit crazy. He laughs, still, but it's slower coming and quick vanishing into a look of constrained confusion like his emotions are at war and stabbing each other in his stomach. His eyes do that thing that he used to do a lot but not so much any more, where he seems to be somewhere else entirely. It happens at odd times. If he drifts away (and this is something different from spacing out, which he does pretty regularly – this was more, this was a roaming, escapist sort of lostness like he's been gone for a thousand years and he can't quite accept that he's back) during dinner, these days, Keith knows there's something wrong. They've been together long enough to keep one another grounded and when that fails, it means something much larger is failing.
But Keith is a guy and he can be sort of oblivious. He might not notice Anderson drifting if it were subtle, or he might not connect it to the circles deepening under his eyes despite the nights of sleep there's no reason he shouldn't be getting. There are things that he'll later think he really should have and normally would have seen but during a particularly hectic week when they don't necessarily see each other he might not notice or might not have a chance to. But there's one symptom of Anderson's depression that he couldn't miss even if he were five kinds of blind – he talks about it.
Anderson is the kind of person who knows when he's cracking, a little, who knows when he's feeling needier or more anxious than usual, who knows himself and knows his moods and knows when there's something off and he picks up on it fast. But he's also not the kind of person who can really emote to a living audience – not about something this personal, anyway – so he generally waits until Keith's ready to go to sleep before going into it.
He presses into Keith’s side and hugs him tight when they're in bed together, lays his head on Keith's shoulder and makes soft little sounds that are either sad or content and neither of them can really differentiate between the two. Keith will put an arm around him, sleepy enough to be amenable to gratuitous cuddling, and maybe they'll talk some, but not seriously. There's not serious talk until Keith's not yet verging on dozing off but is getting there fast. Then and only then does Anderson start to really talk.
The words are generally frustrated and a little disjointed as the things that upset him are inevitably intangibles – he'll talk some about the things he's seen and those he doesn't want to, but more than that, he'll mutter about petty slights that he knows upset him more they should, berating himself for being bothered all the time, and about vague feelings of loneliness and despair, feelings that breed more despair as he tries and fails to trace their source. It's long and involved and there's never anything Keith can do, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to, so he listens hard and doesn't say a word.
He can't help but wonder, though, as he lies there with an arm around Anderson's shoulders and a hand at his waist, why now? Why wait and say all this right now, at this moment, when he's at his most useless? Why not wait until morning, or maybe earlier in the evening, when he was more awake and more fully alert, and maybe capable of saying something more constructive than 'I love you', in the end?
And then, just as these thoughts are becoming a little too jumbled for him to sort out again, Anderson will shift and kiss him – on the cheek or on the mouth, it doesn't really matter – and say, a little wryly, “I'm sorry I'm going insane.”
And that's when Keith will get it. Anderson doesn't want Keith to be helpful, at moment like that – he just wants him to know. He wants him to be aware, to realize that there's a reason for every time he holds on a little too tight or acts a little bit crazy, for the strange wetness in his eyes at inopportune moments and for the times that his laughter is just this side of toppling sideways into tears. Keith can deal with that.
He remembers telling Anderson, on what he tends to think of as their first date (though it was technically the second – he doesn't think the first ought to count) that he can't fix him and he remembers the smile on Anderson's face, the calm look in his eyes as he said he didn't need it. He gets that, now.
Yeah, Anderson gets depressed, sometimes, and, yeah, there's no good reason for it a lot of the time (or at least nothing worse than usual, because heaven knows Anderson's seen plenty of things worth getting depressed over), but that's okay because he'll be okay. He's not going to break.
But even so, Keith's always careful to keep close by at times like that. Anderson doesn't need fixing and Keith would prefer it if he stayed that way.
Series: Exploding Puppies, sort of
Fandom: Punditslash
Pairing: Anderson Cooper/Keith Olbermann
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 932
Summary: Anderson gets depressed, sometimes.
Notes: Contains references to the Exploding Puppies trilogy. Precursor to as-yet unfinished Shatter, in which the nervous breakdown I kept threatening Anderson with actually happens.
When Anderson gets depressed (and he does get depressed, deeply and profoundly so) he does it quietly. He doesn't cry constantly, though he says he often feels like it, and he doesn't break down or do himself injury or starve himself, as are some of the standard responses to depression, in Keith's experience. What he does do is go a little bit crazy. He laughs, still, but it's slower coming and quick vanishing into a look of constrained confusion like his emotions are at war and stabbing each other in his stomach. His eyes do that thing that he used to do a lot but not so much any more, where he seems to be somewhere else entirely. It happens at odd times. If he drifts away (and this is something different from spacing out, which he does pretty regularly – this was more, this was a roaming, escapist sort of lostness like he's been gone for a thousand years and he can't quite accept that he's back) during dinner, these days, Keith knows there's something wrong. They've been together long enough to keep one another grounded and when that fails, it means something much larger is failing.
But Keith is a guy and he can be sort of oblivious. He might not notice Anderson drifting if it were subtle, or he might not connect it to the circles deepening under his eyes despite the nights of sleep there's no reason he shouldn't be getting. There are things that he'll later think he really should have and normally would have seen but during a particularly hectic week when they don't necessarily see each other he might not notice or might not have a chance to. But there's one symptom of Anderson's depression that he couldn't miss even if he were five kinds of blind – he talks about it.
Anderson is the kind of person who knows when he's cracking, a little, who knows when he's feeling needier or more anxious than usual, who knows himself and knows his moods and knows when there's something off and he picks up on it fast. But he's also not the kind of person who can really emote to a living audience – not about something this personal, anyway – so he generally waits until Keith's ready to go to sleep before going into it.
He presses into Keith’s side and hugs him tight when they're in bed together, lays his head on Keith's shoulder and makes soft little sounds that are either sad or content and neither of them can really differentiate between the two. Keith will put an arm around him, sleepy enough to be amenable to gratuitous cuddling, and maybe they'll talk some, but not seriously. There's not serious talk until Keith's not yet verging on dozing off but is getting there fast. Then and only then does Anderson start to really talk.
The words are generally frustrated and a little disjointed as the things that upset him are inevitably intangibles – he'll talk some about the things he's seen and those he doesn't want to, but more than that, he'll mutter about petty slights that he knows upset him more they should, berating himself for being bothered all the time, and about vague feelings of loneliness and despair, feelings that breed more despair as he tries and fails to trace their source. It's long and involved and there's never anything Keith can do, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to, so he listens hard and doesn't say a word.
He can't help but wonder, though, as he lies there with an arm around Anderson's shoulders and a hand at his waist, why now? Why wait and say all this right now, at this moment, when he's at his most useless? Why not wait until morning, or maybe earlier in the evening, when he was more awake and more fully alert, and maybe capable of saying something more constructive than 'I love you', in the end?
And then, just as these thoughts are becoming a little too jumbled for him to sort out again, Anderson will shift and kiss him – on the cheek or on the mouth, it doesn't really matter – and say, a little wryly, “I'm sorry I'm going insane.”
And that's when Keith will get it. Anderson doesn't want Keith to be helpful, at moment like that – he just wants him to know. He wants him to be aware, to realize that there's a reason for every time he holds on a little too tight or acts a little bit crazy, for the strange wetness in his eyes at inopportune moments and for the times that his laughter is just this side of toppling sideways into tears. Keith can deal with that.
He remembers telling Anderson, on what he tends to think of as their first date (though it was technically the second – he doesn't think the first ought to count) that he can't fix him and he remembers the smile on Anderson's face, the calm look in his eyes as he said he didn't need it. He gets that, now.
Yeah, Anderson gets depressed, sometimes, and, yeah, there's no good reason for it a lot of the time (or at least nothing worse than usual, because heaven knows Anderson's seen plenty of things worth getting depressed over), but that's okay because he'll be okay. He's not going to break.
But even so, Keith's always careful to keep close by at times like that. Anderson doesn't need fixing and Keith would prefer it if he stayed that way.