![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Pundits: Anderson Cooper/Rahm Emanuel; Take Me To The Liberalmediagame (Jon, Stephen, ACooper, Rahm)
TWO FICS IN ONE BECAUSE I'M SERIOUSLY AFRAID OF GOING TO HELL. I actually am going to slap a disclaimer on this: I KNOW NOTHING. I KNOW NO ONE. ALL OF THIS IS FAKE. PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME.
Anderson Cooper/Rahm Emanuel
PG13, 2780 words and Rahm Emanuel picking up a new boy.
Caveat lector: I know close to nothing about CNN, and even less about politics! But that's okay, because Anderson Cooper is hot. I have no title for this thing, but it goes out to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
haydn (who propogated the idea with these blisteringly hot pictures of A.Cooper), charlie_d_blue and evercourant, all my psychotic enablers.
Rahm doesn't like working the news networks from anywhere other than behind a telephone, but there are things he has to do and will do for Barack Obama and his country, and schmaltzing it up for CNN is one of those things. It's right up there with bargaining with terrorists and working at Arby's; the only thing making it bearable is the absence of meat-slicing machines and the presence of Anderson Cooper who, as far as Rahm can tell, doesn't look the sort to quote him on semantic policy or the nature of his vocabulary.
People've always told him that they've never seen anyone as capable as Rahm when it comes to smelling blood in the shark-infested political waters of DC. Rahm's ready to tell other people that he hasn't seen a journalist as fucking serious as Anderson Cooper, not since Edward Murrow died.
Truth, peace, withdrawal from Iraq and a hand basket full of hope. Rahm looks sidelong at Cooper. Mr President, sir, I hope you're damn well happy.
'I hope you don't mind me saying, sir, that you're not the best spontaneous speaker,' Cooper says offhand, hands in his pockets and so damn calm in the dark of the pre-show newsroom madness that Rahm has to think, willingly or unwillingly, of the one other person he knows who makes him feel frenetic, jittery, anxious. This is why he hates the press. Rahm Emanuel writes the copy, the releases. It's other people who read them, people like Barack-fucking-Obama and Anderson-I-Save-Pandas-Cooper, people that the world really give a shit about, people that give a shit about the world in ways Rahm can't and won't adopt.
Rahm cracks a half-way smile. 'I script my things. Then I stick to the script. It makes me come off as dodgy and boring, but at least I'm not trying to make sh-- stuff up.'
Cooper's mouth turns, just this side of wry. 'You might as well let it out now before going on air.'
'If I let it out I wouldn't stop,' Rahm shrugs.
'It's part of your nature,' Cooper points out, objective as if he doesn't care the way most people do that one of the members of the most powerful houses in America swears more often than he smiles. 'Not many people know themselves well enough to take a step back the way you do.'
'I'm getting complimented by a guy from CNN.' Rahm rubs his chin thoughtfully. 'Being a Democrat, that somehow doesn't make me feel too special.'
Cooper laughs, low and quiet. 'I don't like you as a person just because you're left-centre, Mr Emanuel.'
'Really?' Rahm says, keeping his eyes forward and watching the studio lights come on with their slow burn. 'That's pretty coincidental, because I don't watch your news programme just because you're pretty.'
Cooper's lips curve. He motions towards the stage. 'Shall we?'
Rahm straightens his tie one last time and murmurs, 'Yeah, why the fuck not.'
---
The proposal's a simple one, a media sing-a-long to the tunes of "letting the voters know that work is being done" in hopes of "presenting a closer, more open view of the new administration". It's a lot of bullshit, because there's very little that's interesting about watching a politician grind along the paper trail, but Rahm takes any publicity that he can control as good publicity. Cooper's along for a day or so, tugging his small little video camera along with him in a way that Rahm'd call quaint, if it weren't for the fact that the moment they step out of the CNN newsroom the sky opens right the fuck up.
The security detail's around the corner of the secure compound, which means they have a nice walk through the rain and, seriously --
Rahm wants to hold it because, one, it's his fucking umbrella, two, he's older than Cooper, and three, the height difference when exaggerated makes Rahm itch under the skein of his suit. Cooper's young, politically stupid, eloquent, impressionable and capable of leaving impressions, an avenue worth pursuing for the sake of his connection to the CNN and the heart of every American who watches anything that isn't Fox News, and also unbelievably old and undeniably young.
So Rahm takes the umbrella, because talking to Cooper makes him feel like he's kicking a puppy while it's down. He's a fan of being brusque, not a proponent of brutality. 'I understand that you don't normally anchor political punditry,' Rahm comments as they trudge from the meeting he's just left towards the car waiting around the block.
'Punditry's not a word, Mr Emanuel,' Cooper says very politely. 'And no, I don't. I could hold the umbrella, if you're having trouble.'
Rahm brushes off the reference to his stature with a snort. 'Are you getting too much rain on your Ralph Laurens?'
Cooper smiles. 'No.'
'Thought not,' Rahm agrees. 'After Katrina, you really shouldn't be paying attention to a drizzle.'
'Speaking from experience, Mr Emanuel?'
'Rahm,' Rahm corrects him. '"Mr Emanuel" makes you sound like you're praying.'
'I hear people often do pray when they hear your name,' Cooper says. 'And you're avoiding the question.'
'Cooper,' Rahm says, as they draw up to the car. He puts a hand on the door handle before the younger man can develop any ideas involving chivalry in the twenty first century. 'I helped put the first black man in office. "Shitstorm", to me, is now a euphemism. Now get in the fucking car, and you can watch me save the world from George W. Bush in comfort. Not quite pandas and rainforests and epidemics, but I live to serve.' And he yanks open the door, and holds it open like any man ought.
Cooper gets in, and Rahm slides in after, brushing drops off his coat. 'You know,' Rahm says. 'I really hate to disappoint, but if you're here trying to document the death of democracy and the parliament in peril? Not going to happen.'
'I try not to think of myself as a disaster journalist,' Cooper says, ignoring the fact that his track record is all about disasters; Katrina and Ike and New Orleans post-Katrina and the DNC and animals dying out in strange rainforests.
'Well, good.' Rahm shrugs out of his coat. 'Because it's my job to pull this party, this administration and this country back from the brink of extinction, and I'm going to do it whether I have to use my hands or my motherfucking teeth.'
Cooper, Rahm notes in the privacy of his mind, manages to look vaguely, if sceptically, impressed. He closes his eyes, and takes a power nap all the way back to the offices, Cooper watching in observational silence.
---
Rahm Emanuel does not make friends; he makes allies, makes family, he makes protégés and then he makes those protégés into men.
By the time Cooper leaves with a strong handshake and a deep-seated look in his eyes that screams either suicidal earnestness or a belief in men that pre-dates the Obama campaign, Rahm has his number in his jacket pocket and gears in his head tick-tick-ticking, processing whether it takes men and women like Cooper, men and women who've seen the world fall almost entirely to pieces to believe in the message of change.
Thoughts like that take time off his schedule, so Rahm moves it into action - sticks Cooper's card into the better rollodex, the one that doesn't get periodically emptied out into the trash can, and spends a while spinning it like a story at his fingertips.
There's something good about that kid. It's not just his good night, and good luck - it's more how Cooper doesn't seem to ever sleep, and Rahm can work with a man like that no matter what his profession or place.
---
The first time they met for a reason other than politics, when they weren't required to talk circles around each other like hungry carnivores, things veered off in a rather unexpected direction.
The Art of War says something about attacking first, and Rahm's always kept to the good book. 'Morning,' he says, standing outside Cooper's door with a box in one hand and an expectant look.
'Mr Emanuel,' Cooper says slowly, doing his best to sound like he's more than half-awake even though it's 7 am on a weekend. He leans just slightly to the left, looking over Rahm's shoulder. 'Are -- Do you have five armed men standing in my apartment corridor?'
'Yes,' Rahm says brusquely, 'they're here to protect you in case I kill you for not inviting me in when it's this fucking cold outside.'
'Ah,' Cooper says, and almost kind of scrambles to let Rahm in, surreptitiously brushing down his slacks and crumpled tshirt like he's worried about not presenting a Black Label-approved front at this time of the day. 'Come in. I just wasn't -'
'Expecting me? Few people are,' Rahm says, and flashes Cooper a smile, and that stuns the boy right into silence. He drops the box on Cooper's tabletop. 'For you,' he says. 'For the good work on the piece, and not making me out to be some evil goldenoodle ready to rip people to bits.'
'What's this?' Cooper asks, touching the edges of the box and tugging at the string holding it together.
'Cheesecake.'
Cooper pauses at that, and Rahm chooses that moment to press his shoe further down on the boy's throat. 'Got coffee? And please don't say decaf.'
Two hours later and they've drawn the lines on everything from baseball to the wars-on-everywhere to discussions about dogs in the White House and how Cooper keeps himself in house and home considering his choice of wardrobe. Rahm's on his second cup of pretty good coffee - he hadn't expected anything less from a person who's 1) a journalist and 2) the aw-shucks heir to a small empire - and Cooper's on his third try persuading the Service personnel outside the door to take something warm. This time he's left the tray out in the corridor, and Rahm has to wonder how much longer the Servicemen will last before Cooper breaks the last of their spirit.
'Are you here,' Cooper asks eventually, when the hour's late enough and the cheesecake eaten enough for the lines of etiquette to shift in the sand, 'to recruit me? Spin something? I hate to ask, but --'
'It's okay. The watchdog appears, people get frightened.' Rahm shakes his head. 'And no, I'm not here to recruit you. I'm here to mine a small portion of your soul. I hear it'll sell well on the black market.'
Cooper stares at him, eyebrow cocked. Rahm decides not to tell him that he isn't joking about the soul until maybe three or four years from now, when it'll be too late.
Instead Rahm flicks his fingers on his coffee cup and rolls his eyes. 'You're a good guy, but a lonely guy, and we're just out of the Thanksgiving-and-Yule-season madness. How often do I get to meet a good guy? Apparently, not often enough. I told Amy about you, and she told me to invite you over for dinner, but even I'm not that cruel.'
Cooper looks younger than he really is when he presses his fingers to his forehead and says, 'No. Thank you.'
----
Rahm wishes he weren't so right about people sometimes. It'd be nice, every once in a while, to be proven wrong about his instincts. Maybe Cooper really isn't a hardball player. Maybe Cooper really is jazzing it up for television and sartorial sponsorship rights. Maybe Cooper's just the average greedy American bastard. Maybe Cooper isn't the hope for the new generation of journalism.
Or maybe not.
Cooper plays, and he plays so sneakily that Rahm wants to shoot himself for not pegging him earlier. When there's another vote in California and the courts and the people and the churches are all on fire over do-gay-people-get-to-get-married, Cooper calls, and Rahm wants to not pick up. So he picks up.
'Don't ask me for my opinion,' he says directly. 'I'm not going to give it to you. And where the fuck are you, Baghdad? Speak up, I can't hear shit.'
'I'm at a protest!' Anderson shouts at him. There's a noise like someone's just shoved him into someone who's shoved a signboard into his face, and Rahm kind of wants to be there to beat people off. 'Word from the ground, Rahm. The people are angry! And if you guys keep waffling in Washington --'
'We're all for civil rights,' Rahm says, patiently even though he wants to break his pen in half and say something that may almost, almost be sorry. Cooper's so fucking alone in his apartment because of all these reasons, and somedays Rahm sends him boxes from Eli's without Cooper having to dedicate 59 of 60 Minutes to him, but cake is a very different thing from constitutional enabling.
The crowd's definitely angry, and even Cooper sounds angry. 'That's crap, Rahm, and it's going to come back to --'
'Bite me on the ass?' Rahm asks, arch. 'What are you trying to do, swing my carefully constructed Congress-confusing centrist leanings leftwards?'
'No,' Anderson yells into the phone. 'I was just thinking of swinging you humanist, but I take the rumours of your lack of a heart have not been greatly exaggerated.'
Anderson puts down, fuck him very much.
---
When the proposition gets repealed, Cooper starts picking up the phone again, answering whenever Rahm calls with a distinct lack of smug bastardry, which makes it hard to deal.
'Appeal to the people?' Rahm says into the phone, leaning back in his chair and looking at the far wall. 'I know. Appealing to the people is an important part of the job. I like it. When I campaigned for my seat I did train stations, bingo parties. I saw human beings. But you're missing the point here, Anderson -' Rahm switches between that and "Cooper", depending on how much he wants to hurt the boy's feelings. '- the point being that a lot of people are idiots. They can't be trusted. They elect people who they can trust into the White House, and you know what democracy does then? It gets into Congress. And then Congress takes it out back, and shoots it in the forehead repeatedly. Don't talk to me about the power of the people when the power of the people put the Bush Administration on the most important seat on earth for 8 years. We believe in rights. We also believe in doing the right thing.'
There's silence for a little while. 'And you really believe that you're doing the right thing?'
Rahm pauses. 'Don't you believe that? Do you think anyone'd be able to keep the hours we keep -'
'You keep.'
'- we keep without believing in what they're doing? Without appealing to some standard of what's right or wrong? You go around saving the goddamned earth, talking to your video camera when some people don't even know what global warming is. Ignorance isn't a terminal disease, though that's what we've come to believe for half a decade. You do the news, Cooper. You know this.'
'I've always wondered,' Cooper replies, staticky from wherever the hell he must be now. 'About how strongly you believed in your faith. There never seemed to be answers, considering that you're so factual about everything else. Now I think I know.'
Rahm, honest to god, rolls his eyes. 'Cooper,' he says, leaning his elbows onto his knees and wondering why the hell he had to pick this man, of all men, to be his go-to guy for the liberal media that already embraces "change that people can believe in". 'Get your head out of the melodramatic clouds you've stuck them in.'
'Says the man who supported the first individual to preach about hope in an era of cynicism,' Cooper says, calm as you please. 'Do they care a lot about "street cred" in Chicago? Is that why you perfected your growl?'
'You're the man who giggles on national television,' Rahm replies. 'So fuck you very much. When are you coming back?'
'When are you going to get a proper night's sleep?'
Rahm kicks his legs up on the table, and closes his eyes as he feels his heel dig into a report that must have been filed by some enthusiastic Republican. 'I'll see you, Cooper.' No fuck-yous, here, because Cooper will say:
'Have a good day, Rahm,' even if it's one in the morning, rain coming down outside as Rahm waits for the sun to rise.
--
Fic 2:
My only excuse is... I have no excuse. Pundits/Rahmfic, ho!
Take Me To The Liberalmediagame
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper and Rahm Emanuel. PG13. 2452 words.
Stephen wants Rahm on the Report. Rahm just wants, more or less, to make Anderson laugh. Sort-of-not-really follow up post to the fic above.
This is the fault ofevercourant, whom I stole a few lines from, and also kaiserkuchen, who provided sinful pictures and links to AC stuff.
Caveat lector: I am so new to these people that sometimes I have no idea what I'm doing. 8D
'So why do you get to interview him,' Stephen -- Well, Stephen doesn't whine, but Anderson doesn't really know what else to call Stephen's vaguely passive-aggressive growling. Mr Colbert leans across the table and stares at him with his eyebrow twitched just so, and all Anderson wants to do is run back to the studio and do very serious pieces for another three hours. If he bursts out laughing ("giggling," Jon always says; Jon, who is currently reading the newspapers pretending this conversation is not happening) now, Stephen will gut him, and then CNN will sue him, and then he may just end up dead.
Stephen has his fork in Anderson's face. Anderson leans sideways to make sure it doesn't take out his eye as Stephen gesticulates, making note at the same time never to have breakfast with Stephen (or Jon, or any one of his friends) ever again. 'You're a serious guy, Anderson. You'll grill him and while giving him that face of yours that screams political solvency. Shouldn't he be afraid of you?'
'Stephen,' Anderson says as placating as he can. 'Stephen, I work for CNN.'
'And I work for Comedy Central,' Stephen pronounces. 'The Chief of Staff of the United States does not get brownie points for turning up on CNN. He does, however, get brownie points for turning up on the Colbert Report. If you're on CNN, you're just a dude. If you're on the Report, you're cool. You are,' Stephen brings the fork down to stab at his recently deceased muffin, 'important.'
'Thank you Stephen, you're right, Stephen, absolutely, Stephen,' Anderson agrees rapidly. 'But? You're also kind of scary.'
Stephen's eyebrows rise another half-inch or so, which is an achievement close to record-breaking. 'I might be scary, but have I ever been mean to you?'
'Not to me,' Anderson agrees, 'but to other people? Yes? You called Obama "Hitler".'
'In an affectionate, loving way!' Stephen growls.
'And, if you really want to interview Rahm, well, you maybe shouldn't have given him the finger on national television. Three times.'
'Four,' Jon comments from behind his paper.
Stephen's fork swings to Jon. 'You stay out of this, mister. You've had Emanuel on your show, you don't get to complain.'
'Righto,' Jon says, and turns the page.
Stephen returns his attentions to Anderson, who is having some real trouble not smiling. 'And why are you on a first name basis with our esteemed evil watchdog?'
Anderson looks down at his latte for a moment, considering. Then he looks up. 'Because he likes me?'
'No,' Stephen shakes his head. 'Because he's using you. Using your shiny, polished CNN-anchoring ass to get what he wants: control over the liberal media. And you're letting him?'
'He's not a totally bad guy,' Anderson protests. 'Loud, determined, stubborn, sometimes very vulgar, but that's not really exceptionally bad behaviour. I know a couple of other guys like that myself.'
There's a dead silence. Jon lets out a low whistle, and gropes for his coffee.
And Anderson says, 'Guys like...' Stephen continues to look at him. 'Keith Olbermann?' Stephen moves backwards a little bit, which means Anderson can now breathe again. 'Look, Stephen. Rahm treats his people right, and he's a busy man. Your Better Know A District people caused a lot of grief for him for a while. It's understandable that he --'
'Propaganda,' Stephen pronounces. 'You're spewing his propaganda. What did he buy you? A seat on cabinet?'
'He brought me cheesecake?' Anderson confesses vaguely.
'He bought you cheesecake?' Jon says the same time Stephen yells, 'You let him buy you?!'
This, Anderson believes, is a good time to beat a hasty retreat. 'Um,' he says, fighting to keep his laughter down. 'I've got to go, work and stuff, here, I'll pay for breakfast,' and he drops a fifty dollar bill on the table and runs for his life.
'Spoiled rich silver foxy brat,' Stephen mutters to Anderson's shadow.
'You don't find it in the least way disturbing that Andy's getting picked up by Rahm Emanuel?' Jon asks, finally putting down the paper. 'Not at all? That they're on each other's phone lists?'
'I call it unfair,' Stephen mutters.
'Okay,' Jon says, reaching over to pat Stephen on the back. 'Whatever floats your boat, buddy.'
'Should I send him live fish?' Stephen asks, destroying what's left of his food with a vengeance. 'If Emanuel sends dead fish to people he doesn't like, how about live ones?'
'I think you should just give up,' Jon tells Stephen.
'Maybe tuna,' Stephen says. 'Tuna are big fish.'
---
'I need some airtime, and by "some" I mean a lot. Get out of bed, you lazy shit, and talk to me.'
'Good evening to you too,' Anderson says into his phone, groggily. He looks at his bedside clock. 'Rahm,' he says, pressing a hand over his eyes. 'It's two in the morning. Why are you calling me at two in the morning?'
'I'm sorry, Cooper,' Rahm bites into the phone. 'Would you like me to put the business of this country after your schedule? I could ask the whole fucking world to stop spinning while you get your beauty sleep. Alternatively, you could act like the goddamned journalist you are. Get up.'
Anderson gets up. 'What's bothering you?' he asks. Rahm doesn't usually bother with rhetoric; it wastes too much time. 'Is everything all right?'
'Peachy,' Rahm snarls into the phone. Anderson can hear the tapping of a pen against paper. 'A few interns need to go down and go out. Old hangers-on from the Bush Administration who're still latching on like the annoying, blood-sucking leeches they are. As we do the "out with the old, in with the new", we need you people to not be idiots.'
'Rahm,' Anderson says, patiently. 'I don't control CNN.'
'No, you don't, but you do control some of its delivery. If you need me to turn up and make a statement, I will. There's a list in your inbox with the names and what I know about them, and if people try and kick up a fuss and call this a witch-hunt? Kill them.'
Anderson lets the pointed silence speak for him.
'With your logic,' Rahm sighs. 'Your "caring about things". Your motherfucking smile, Cooper.'
'I thought you said you didn't like me for "being pretty".'
'I wasn't lying,' Rahm says, so serious Anderson feels sharp, awake, solid. Then Rahm's voice changes. 'But I never claimed to speak for the rest of the world.'
Resigned, Anderson reaches for his Blackberry. 'I'll talk to the producers. Give me a time frame.'
Rahm purrs, 'Good boy.'
---
In Anderson Cooper's email the day after Rahm Emanuel appears on a CNN segment explaining various changes in White House staff:
FROM: Stephen Colbert
TO: Anderson Cooper
SUBJECT: YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT, KID
BODY:
THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH I AM WILLING TO TAKE FROM YOUNG START-UPS, COOPER. YOU WATCH YOURSELF. I'M GOING TO GET YOU. AND THEN I'M GOING TO GET EMANUEL, BUT DON'T THINK I'M EVER TURNING PI RADIANS FOR YOU EVER, EVER AGAIN, O SIR MOUTHPIECE OF THE GOVERNMENT.
---
'Rahm?' Anderson calls a few days later from somewhere down in Thailand where he's tracking a case of human trafficking.
It's been a week worth of heat and darkness and the worst parts of humanity; Anderson wonders if it's his fault for staying at home too long covering politics, his fault that it all hits him a little bit too hard now that he's back on the ground and returned to proper journalism. Some of the things he's seen he never wants to forget, but the images when burned into the back of his mind keep him awake, wired, itching for change.
'Cooper?' Rahm picks up even though it's three in the morning in the United States. 'Why the fuck are you calling me?'
'You can afford the long distance bill, sir,' Anderson says, then adds, more quietly, 'You're the only one who was likely to be awake.'
There's a five second silence, filled with static. Then Rahm says, 'Get your fucking act together.'
'I know,' Anderson says, rubbing his brow. He's been awake for roughly thirty eight hours, he and the crew having just got back from the trip out on the ground. Rest is still the farthest thing from his mind. 'Why do you think I called you?'
'I'm not your personal cheerleading team, Cooper,' Rahm says, but there's no bite in his voice. 'You've got five minutes, and then I have to get back to making sure less important people don't fuck up.'
Anderson manages a chuckle. 'The enormity of your personality never fails to surprise me, Rahm.'
'Don't make me laugh,' Rahm says.
Anderson fiddles with his Blackberry as they talk, exchanging updates from DC and tidbits from his coverage, the both of them winding down. Anderson's surprised to see that his personal folder is more full than it usually is; he opens it, and then barks out a laugh.
'What the fuck?' Rahm snarls into his ear. 'You find amendments to the minimum wage funny?'
'No, no, it's not that,' Anderson says, flicking through the thirteen odd emails from Stephen, all of them variations on the same theme. 'It's just, Stephen Colbert.'
There's a certain amount of satisfaction in Rahm's voice when he says, 'Yes, I'd laugh at that man too.'
'He's desperate to get you on his show.'
'That's something else you and I both find funny, then.'
'You could just relent. Maybe he'd stop abusing my inbox.'
'He's abusing your inbox?'
'Rahm.'
'I didn't say anything, Cooper. Doesn't matter, your cry-baby time's up. Fuck off and go do some good work. I'll see you when I see you.'
---
In Jon Stewart's email the day after Rahm Emanuel appears on The Daily Show talking about healthcare reforms in 2009:
FROM: Stephen Colbert
TO: Jon Stewart
SUBJECT: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
BODY:
YOUR STUDIO IS RIGHT NEXT TO MINE. YOUR SHOW, MY SHOW, WE'RE FAMILY. AND YOU DO THIS? YOU HAVE HIM ON YOUR SHOW AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO UNLOCK THE ENTRANCES AND EXITS AND ALSO THE FIRE ESCAPE UNTIL AFTER YOU'RE DONE FILMING? SNEAKY, BY THE WAY, BUT STILL, IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL. IS THIS A LIBERAL CONSPIRACY?
Jon Stewart, in reply to the message above:
FROM: Jon Stewart
TO: Stephen Colbert
SUBJECT: Don't yell at me
BODY:
The audience voted for him, and I didn't think he'd agree, but he did, and that's all there is to it. Calm the hell down, Stephen. Just let it go.
---
Stephen almost breaks something when he finds out that Emanuel's due to appear on O'Brien. Jon has to grind up half a sleeping pill and mix it into Stephen's post-show drink, and then he puts Stephen into a cab and takes him back - ranting quietly and drowsy - to Stephen's apartment before putting him to bed. Jon plucks out the television cables when he leaves the house.
---
In Rahm Emanuel's (personal, filtered, spam-guarded-by-three-different-pieces-of-software) email:
FROM: Anderson Cooper
TO: Rahm Emanuel
SUBJECT: ?
BODY:
Rahm, why are you turning up on every talk show and news pundit segment except for the Colbert Report?
---
When Anderson next goes out with Jon and Stephen for breakfast, he makes the mistake of leaving his cell phone in his jacket pocket, which he then makes the mistake of leaving slung over his chair when he goes to make his order.
'Stephen,' Jon says from behind his newspaper. 'Don't do it, man, I'm warning you.'
'Just this once,' Stephen says, and he plunges his fingers into Anderson's pocket coat and scrolls through the names on Anderson's phone until he hits "R".
---
When Anderson ends up in hospital with a minor case of dengue after getting back from god-knows-where, Rahm pays a visit, sitting in a chair by Anderson's bed and smiling because he enjoys the look of speculation and fear in the eyes of the nurses as they pass by the Secret Service personnel at the door.
Anderson, still weak but on the road to recovery, shakes his head and comments about schadenfreude.
'Schadenfreude?' Rahm says. 'That's not my source schadenfreude. My source is far more persistent and fucking hilarious to lead along. Did you know that your friend Colbert somehow got his hands on my private number?'
That makes Anderson sit up a little too fast; Rahm presses him back into the bed as Anderson asks, 'How?' Realisation only dawns a few minutes later - no wonder Jon called to say "watch out, he's crazy and he's desperate." 'My god, I'm sorry, Rahm. He must've somehow-'
'It's not your fault; you're a pretty close-mouthed bastard, I know,' Rahm says. 'And it's been funny watching him squirm.'
'Well,' Anderson admits. 'He always has a few new outrageous proposals every time I see him. I'm starting to take pity on him, though. You've been cruel.'
'Only because you have such funny friends,' Rahm says, standing up and buttoning his jacket as he goes. 'Crawl out of bed soon, Cooper.'
'Have some mercy on him,' Anderson calls out after Rahm.
Rahm gives him a four-and-a-half wave goodbye.
---
One day, when Stephen least expects it, Rahm calls him. Stephen literally feels his heart stop. And Rahm says to him, slowly and cheerfully, I think I'm going to go on Jay Leno.
Stephen feels the rage building up inside of him, and then Rahm says, Unless you can make me a better offer.
---
Jon catches up with Anderson somewhere near the CNN studios a few days after the younger man gets out of hospital and certified fit. Jogging on the spot to keep warm in the cold December air, Jon says to Anderson, 'You know that Stephen's going to get Emanuel onto the Report?'
'Yes,' Anderson says, smiling a little bit. 'He only emailed me twenty times.'
Jon makes a motion with his hand. 'Did you do it? Pull on your strings? Because Stephen says he promised not to humiliate Emanuel, or at least not as much as he's dreamed and plotted for years. That's not an olive branch anymore, there - from Stephen, that's the entire damn olive tree.'
'Something tells me that, even if he tried to humiliate Rahm, Stephen'd have a hard time,' Anderson laughs. It feels good to be home.
Jon shoots Anderson a look. 'Well,' he says slowly. 'You just go on helping your friends get along like that. Leave me way out of it and I'll be happy.'
Anderson hums.
Jon laughs.
'Want to go crash the recording? I'll bring the popcorn.'
'So I guess I should bring the Kevlar?'
Anderson Cooper/Rahm Emanuel
PG13, 2780 words and Rahm Emanuel picking up a new boy.
Caveat lector: I know close to nothing about CNN, and even less about politics! But that's okay, because Anderson Cooper is hot. I have no title for this thing, but it goes out to
haydn (who propogated the idea with these blisteringly hot pictures of A.Cooper), 
charlie_d_blue and evercourant, all my psychotic enablers.Rahm doesn't like working the news networks from anywhere other than behind a telephone, but there are things he has to do and will do for Barack Obama and his country, and schmaltzing it up for CNN is one of those things. It's right up there with bargaining with terrorists and working at Arby's; the only thing making it bearable is the absence of meat-slicing machines and the presence of Anderson Cooper who, as far as Rahm can tell, doesn't look the sort to quote him on semantic policy or the nature of his vocabulary.
People've always told him that they've never seen anyone as capable as Rahm when it comes to smelling blood in the shark-infested political waters of DC. Rahm's ready to tell other people that he hasn't seen a journalist as fucking serious as Anderson Cooper, not since Edward Murrow died.
Truth, peace, withdrawal from Iraq and a hand basket full of hope. Rahm looks sidelong at Cooper. Mr President, sir, I hope you're damn well happy.
'I hope you don't mind me saying, sir, that you're not the best spontaneous speaker,' Cooper says offhand, hands in his pockets and so damn calm in the dark of the pre-show newsroom madness that Rahm has to think, willingly or unwillingly, of the one other person he knows who makes him feel frenetic, jittery, anxious. This is why he hates the press. Rahm Emanuel writes the copy, the releases. It's other people who read them, people like Barack-fucking-Obama and Anderson-I-Save-Pandas-Cooper, people that the world really give a shit about, people that give a shit about the world in ways Rahm can't and won't adopt.
Rahm cracks a half-way smile. 'I script my things. Then I stick to the script. It makes me come off as dodgy and boring, but at least I'm not trying to make sh-- stuff up.'
Cooper's mouth turns, just this side of wry. 'You might as well let it out now before going on air.'
'If I let it out I wouldn't stop,' Rahm shrugs.
'It's part of your nature,' Cooper points out, objective as if he doesn't care the way most people do that one of the members of the most powerful houses in America swears more often than he smiles. 'Not many people know themselves well enough to take a step back the way you do.'
'I'm getting complimented by a guy from CNN.' Rahm rubs his chin thoughtfully. 'Being a Democrat, that somehow doesn't make me feel too special.'
Cooper laughs, low and quiet. 'I don't like you as a person just because you're left-centre, Mr Emanuel.'
'Really?' Rahm says, keeping his eyes forward and watching the studio lights come on with their slow burn. 'That's pretty coincidental, because I don't watch your news programme just because you're pretty.'
Cooper's lips curve. He motions towards the stage. 'Shall we?'
Rahm straightens his tie one last time and murmurs, 'Yeah, why the fuck not.'
---
The proposal's a simple one, a media sing-a-long to the tunes of "letting the voters know that work is being done" in hopes of "presenting a closer, more open view of the new administration". It's a lot of bullshit, because there's very little that's interesting about watching a politician grind along the paper trail, but Rahm takes any publicity that he can control as good publicity. Cooper's along for a day or so, tugging his small little video camera along with him in a way that Rahm'd call quaint, if it weren't for the fact that the moment they step out of the CNN newsroom the sky opens right the fuck up.
The security detail's around the corner of the secure compound, which means they have a nice walk through the rain and, seriously --
Rahm wants to hold it because, one, it's his fucking umbrella, two, he's older than Cooper, and three, the height difference when exaggerated makes Rahm itch under the skein of his suit. Cooper's young, politically stupid, eloquent, impressionable and capable of leaving impressions, an avenue worth pursuing for the sake of his connection to the CNN and the heart of every American who watches anything that isn't Fox News, and also unbelievably old and undeniably young.
So Rahm takes the umbrella, because talking to Cooper makes him feel like he's kicking a puppy while it's down. He's a fan of being brusque, not a proponent of brutality. 'I understand that you don't normally anchor political punditry,' Rahm comments as they trudge from the meeting he's just left towards the car waiting around the block.
'Punditry's not a word, Mr Emanuel,' Cooper says very politely. 'And no, I don't. I could hold the umbrella, if you're having trouble.'
Rahm brushes off the reference to his stature with a snort. 'Are you getting too much rain on your Ralph Laurens?'
Cooper smiles. 'No.'
'Thought not,' Rahm agrees. 'After Katrina, you really shouldn't be paying attention to a drizzle.'
'Speaking from experience, Mr Emanuel?'
'Rahm,' Rahm corrects him. '"Mr Emanuel" makes you sound like you're praying.'
'I hear people often do pray when they hear your name,' Cooper says. 'And you're avoiding the question.'
'Cooper,' Rahm says, as they draw up to the car. He puts a hand on the door handle before the younger man can develop any ideas involving chivalry in the twenty first century. 'I helped put the first black man in office. "Shitstorm", to me, is now a euphemism. Now get in the fucking car, and you can watch me save the world from George W. Bush in comfort. Not quite pandas and rainforests and epidemics, but I live to serve.' And he yanks open the door, and holds it open like any man ought.
Cooper gets in, and Rahm slides in after, brushing drops off his coat. 'You know,' Rahm says. 'I really hate to disappoint, but if you're here trying to document the death of democracy and the parliament in peril? Not going to happen.'
'I try not to think of myself as a disaster journalist,' Cooper says, ignoring the fact that his track record is all about disasters; Katrina and Ike and New Orleans post-Katrina and the DNC and animals dying out in strange rainforests.
'Well, good.' Rahm shrugs out of his coat. 'Because it's my job to pull this party, this administration and this country back from the brink of extinction, and I'm going to do it whether I have to use my hands or my motherfucking teeth.'
Cooper, Rahm notes in the privacy of his mind, manages to look vaguely, if sceptically, impressed. He closes his eyes, and takes a power nap all the way back to the offices, Cooper watching in observational silence.
---
Rahm Emanuel does not make friends; he makes allies, makes family, he makes protégés and then he makes those protégés into men.
By the time Cooper leaves with a strong handshake and a deep-seated look in his eyes that screams either suicidal earnestness or a belief in men that pre-dates the Obama campaign, Rahm has his number in his jacket pocket and gears in his head tick-tick-ticking, processing whether it takes men and women like Cooper, men and women who've seen the world fall almost entirely to pieces to believe in the message of change.
Thoughts like that take time off his schedule, so Rahm moves it into action - sticks Cooper's card into the better rollodex, the one that doesn't get periodically emptied out into the trash can, and spends a while spinning it like a story at his fingertips.
There's something good about that kid. It's not just his good night, and good luck - it's more how Cooper doesn't seem to ever sleep, and Rahm can work with a man like that no matter what his profession or place.
---
The first time they met for a reason other than politics, when they weren't required to talk circles around each other like hungry carnivores, things veered off in a rather unexpected direction.
The Art of War says something about attacking first, and Rahm's always kept to the good book. 'Morning,' he says, standing outside Cooper's door with a box in one hand and an expectant look.
'Mr Emanuel,' Cooper says slowly, doing his best to sound like he's more than half-awake even though it's 7 am on a weekend. He leans just slightly to the left, looking over Rahm's shoulder. 'Are -- Do you have five armed men standing in my apartment corridor?'
'Yes,' Rahm says brusquely, 'they're here to protect you in case I kill you for not inviting me in when it's this fucking cold outside.'
'Ah,' Cooper says, and almost kind of scrambles to let Rahm in, surreptitiously brushing down his slacks and crumpled tshirt like he's worried about not presenting a Black Label-approved front at this time of the day. 'Come in. I just wasn't -'
'Expecting me? Few people are,' Rahm says, and flashes Cooper a smile, and that stuns the boy right into silence. He drops the box on Cooper's tabletop. 'For you,' he says. 'For the good work on the piece, and not making me out to be some evil goldenoodle ready to rip people to bits.'
'What's this?' Cooper asks, touching the edges of the box and tugging at the string holding it together.
'Cheesecake.'
Cooper pauses at that, and Rahm chooses that moment to press his shoe further down on the boy's throat. 'Got coffee? And please don't say decaf.'
Two hours later and they've drawn the lines on everything from baseball to the wars-on-everywhere to discussions about dogs in the White House and how Cooper keeps himself in house and home considering his choice of wardrobe. Rahm's on his second cup of pretty good coffee - he hadn't expected anything less from a person who's 1) a journalist and 2) the aw-shucks heir to a small empire - and Cooper's on his third try persuading the Service personnel outside the door to take something warm. This time he's left the tray out in the corridor, and Rahm has to wonder how much longer the Servicemen will last before Cooper breaks the last of their spirit.
'Are you here,' Cooper asks eventually, when the hour's late enough and the cheesecake eaten enough for the lines of etiquette to shift in the sand, 'to recruit me? Spin something? I hate to ask, but --'
'It's okay. The watchdog appears, people get frightened.' Rahm shakes his head. 'And no, I'm not here to recruit you. I'm here to mine a small portion of your soul. I hear it'll sell well on the black market.'
Cooper stares at him, eyebrow cocked. Rahm decides not to tell him that he isn't joking about the soul until maybe three or four years from now, when it'll be too late.
Instead Rahm flicks his fingers on his coffee cup and rolls his eyes. 'You're a good guy, but a lonely guy, and we're just out of the Thanksgiving-and-Yule-season madness. How often do I get to meet a good guy? Apparently, not often enough. I told Amy about you, and she told me to invite you over for dinner, but even I'm not that cruel.'
Cooper looks younger than he really is when he presses his fingers to his forehead and says, 'No. Thank you.'
----
Rahm wishes he weren't so right about people sometimes. It'd be nice, every once in a while, to be proven wrong about his instincts. Maybe Cooper really isn't a hardball player. Maybe Cooper really is jazzing it up for television and sartorial sponsorship rights. Maybe Cooper's just the average greedy American bastard. Maybe Cooper isn't the hope for the new generation of journalism.
Or maybe not.
Cooper plays, and he plays so sneakily that Rahm wants to shoot himself for not pegging him earlier. When there's another vote in California and the courts and the people and the churches are all on fire over do-gay-people-get-to-get-married, Cooper calls, and Rahm wants to not pick up. So he picks up.
'Don't ask me for my opinion,' he says directly. 'I'm not going to give it to you. And where the fuck are you, Baghdad? Speak up, I can't hear shit.'
'I'm at a protest!' Anderson shouts at him. There's a noise like someone's just shoved him into someone who's shoved a signboard into his face, and Rahm kind of wants to be there to beat people off. 'Word from the ground, Rahm. The people are angry! And if you guys keep waffling in Washington --'
'We're all for civil rights,' Rahm says, patiently even though he wants to break his pen in half and say something that may almost, almost be sorry. Cooper's so fucking alone in his apartment because of all these reasons, and somedays Rahm sends him boxes from Eli's without Cooper having to dedicate 59 of 60 Minutes to him, but cake is a very different thing from constitutional enabling.
The crowd's definitely angry, and even Cooper sounds angry. 'That's crap, Rahm, and it's going to come back to --'
'Bite me on the ass?' Rahm asks, arch. 'What are you trying to do, swing my carefully constructed Congress-confusing centrist leanings leftwards?'
'No,' Anderson yells into the phone. 'I was just thinking of swinging you humanist, but I take the rumours of your lack of a heart have not been greatly exaggerated.'
Anderson puts down, fuck him very much.
---
When the proposition gets repealed, Cooper starts picking up the phone again, answering whenever Rahm calls with a distinct lack of smug bastardry, which makes it hard to deal.
'Appeal to the people?' Rahm says into the phone, leaning back in his chair and looking at the far wall. 'I know. Appealing to the people is an important part of the job. I like it. When I campaigned for my seat I did train stations, bingo parties. I saw human beings. But you're missing the point here, Anderson -' Rahm switches between that and "Cooper", depending on how much he wants to hurt the boy's feelings. '- the point being that a lot of people are idiots. They can't be trusted. They elect people who they can trust into the White House, and you know what democracy does then? It gets into Congress. And then Congress takes it out back, and shoots it in the forehead repeatedly. Don't talk to me about the power of the people when the power of the people put the Bush Administration on the most important seat on earth for 8 years. We believe in rights. We also believe in doing the right thing.'
There's silence for a little while. 'And you really believe that you're doing the right thing?'
Rahm pauses. 'Don't you believe that? Do you think anyone'd be able to keep the hours we keep -'
'You keep.'
'- we keep without believing in what they're doing? Without appealing to some standard of what's right or wrong? You go around saving the goddamned earth, talking to your video camera when some people don't even know what global warming is. Ignorance isn't a terminal disease, though that's what we've come to believe for half a decade. You do the news, Cooper. You know this.'
'I've always wondered,' Cooper replies, staticky from wherever the hell he must be now. 'About how strongly you believed in your faith. There never seemed to be answers, considering that you're so factual about everything else. Now I think I know.'
Rahm, honest to god, rolls his eyes. 'Cooper,' he says, leaning his elbows onto his knees and wondering why the hell he had to pick this man, of all men, to be his go-to guy for the liberal media that already embraces "change that people can believe in". 'Get your head out of the melodramatic clouds you've stuck them in.'
'Says the man who supported the first individual to preach about hope in an era of cynicism,' Cooper says, calm as you please. 'Do they care a lot about "street cred" in Chicago? Is that why you perfected your growl?'
'You're the man who giggles on national television,' Rahm replies. 'So fuck you very much. When are you coming back?'
'When are you going to get a proper night's sleep?'
Rahm kicks his legs up on the table, and closes his eyes as he feels his heel dig into a report that must have been filed by some enthusiastic Republican. 'I'll see you, Cooper.' No fuck-yous, here, because Cooper will say:
'Have a good day, Rahm,' even if it's one in the morning, rain coming down outside as Rahm waits for the sun to rise.
--
Fic 2:
My only excuse is... I have no excuse. Pundits/Rahmfic, ho!
Take Me To The Liberalmediagame
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper and Rahm Emanuel. PG13. 2452 words.
Stephen wants Rahm on the Report. Rahm just wants, more or less, to make Anderson laugh. Sort-of-not-really follow up post to the fic above.
This is the fault of
evercourant, whom I stole a few lines from, and also kaiserkuchen, who provided sinful pictures and links to AC stuff.Caveat lector: I am so new to these people that sometimes I have no idea what I'm doing. 8D
'So why do you get to interview him,' Stephen -- Well, Stephen doesn't whine, but Anderson doesn't really know what else to call Stephen's vaguely passive-aggressive growling. Mr Colbert leans across the table and stares at him with his eyebrow twitched just so, and all Anderson wants to do is run back to the studio and do very serious pieces for another three hours. If he bursts out laughing ("giggling," Jon always says; Jon, who is currently reading the newspapers pretending this conversation is not happening) now, Stephen will gut him, and then CNN will sue him, and then he may just end up dead.
Stephen has his fork in Anderson's face. Anderson leans sideways to make sure it doesn't take out his eye as Stephen gesticulates, making note at the same time never to have breakfast with Stephen (or Jon, or any one of his friends) ever again. 'You're a serious guy, Anderson. You'll grill him and while giving him that face of yours that screams political solvency. Shouldn't he be afraid of you?'
'Stephen,' Anderson says as placating as he can. 'Stephen, I work for CNN.'
'And I work for Comedy Central,' Stephen pronounces. 'The Chief of Staff of the United States does not get brownie points for turning up on CNN. He does, however, get brownie points for turning up on the Colbert Report. If you're on CNN, you're just a dude. If you're on the Report, you're cool. You are,' Stephen brings the fork down to stab at his recently deceased muffin, 'important.'
'Thank you Stephen, you're right, Stephen, absolutely, Stephen,' Anderson agrees rapidly. 'But? You're also kind of scary.'
Stephen's eyebrows rise another half-inch or so, which is an achievement close to record-breaking. 'I might be scary, but have I ever been mean to you?'
'Not to me,' Anderson agrees, 'but to other people? Yes? You called Obama "Hitler".'
'In an affectionate, loving way!' Stephen growls.
'And, if you really want to interview Rahm, well, you maybe shouldn't have given him the finger on national television. Three times.'
'Four,' Jon comments from behind his paper.
Stephen's fork swings to Jon. 'You stay out of this, mister. You've had Emanuel on your show, you don't get to complain.'
'Righto,' Jon says, and turns the page.
Stephen returns his attentions to Anderson, who is having some real trouble not smiling. 'And why are you on a first name basis with our esteemed evil watchdog?'
Anderson looks down at his latte for a moment, considering. Then he looks up. 'Because he likes me?'
'No,' Stephen shakes his head. 'Because he's using you. Using your shiny, polished CNN-anchoring ass to get what he wants: control over the liberal media. And you're letting him?'
'He's not a totally bad guy,' Anderson protests. 'Loud, determined, stubborn, sometimes very vulgar, but that's not really exceptionally bad behaviour. I know a couple of other guys like that myself.'
There's a dead silence. Jon lets out a low whistle, and gropes for his coffee.
And Anderson says, 'Guys like...' Stephen continues to look at him. 'Keith Olbermann?' Stephen moves backwards a little bit, which means Anderson can now breathe again. 'Look, Stephen. Rahm treats his people right, and he's a busy man. Your Better Know A District people caused a lot of grief for him for a while. It's understandable that he --'
'Propaganda,' Stephen pronounces. 'You're spewing his propaganda. What did he buy you? A seat on cabinet?'
'He brought me cheesecake?' Anderson confesses vaguely.
'He bought you cheesecake?' Jon says the same time Stephen yells, 'You let him buy you?!'
This, Anderson believes, is a good time to beat a hasty retreat. 'Um,' he says, fighting to keep his laughter down. 'I've got to go, work and stuff, here, I'll pay for breakfast,' and he drops a fifty dollar bill on the table and runs for his life.
'Spoiled rich silver foxy brat,' Stephen mutters to Anderson's shadow.
'You don't find it in the least way disturbing that Andy's getting picked up by Rahm Emanuel?' Jon asks, finally putting down the paper. 'Not at all? That they're on each other's phone lists?'
'I call it unfair,' Stephen mutters.
'Okay,' Jon says, reaching over to pat Stephen on the back. 'Whatever floats your boat, buddy.'
'Should I send him live fish?' Stephen asks, destroying what's left of his food with a vengeance. 'If Emanuel sends dead fish to people he doesn't like, how about live ones?'
'I think you should just give up,' Jon tells Stephen.
'Maybe tuna,' Stephen says. 'Tuna are big fish.'
---
'I need some airtime, and by "some" I mean a lot. Get out of bed, you lazy shit, and talk to me.'
'Good evening to you too,' Anderson says into his phone, groggily. He looks at his bedside clock. 'Rahm,' he says, pressing a hand over his eyes. 'It's two in the morning. Why are you calling me at two in the morning?'
'I'm sorry, Cooper,' Rahm bites into the phone. 'Would you like me to put the business of this country after your schedule? I could ask the whole fucking world to stop spinning while you get your beauty sleep. Alternatively, you could act like the goddamned journalist you are. Get up.'
Anderson gets up. 'What's bothering you?' he asks. Rahm doesn't usually bother with rhetoric; it wastes too much time. 'Is everything all right?'
'Peachy,' Rahm snarls into the phone. Anderson can hear the tapping of a pen against paper. 'A few interns need to go down and go out. Old hangers-on from the Bush Administration who're still latching on like the annoying, blood-sucking leeches they are. As we do the "out with the old, in with the new", we need you people to not be idiots.'
'Rahm,' Anderson says, patiently. 'I don't control CNN.'
'No, you don't, but you do control some of its delivery. If you need me to turn up and make a statement, I will. There's a list in your inbox with the names and what I know about them, and if people try and kick up a fuss and call this a witch-hunt? Kill them.'
Anderson lets the pointed silence speak for him.
'With your logic,' Rahm sighs. 'Your "caring about things". Your motherfucking smile, Cooper.'
'I thought you said you didn't like me for "being pretty".'
'I wasn't lying,' Rahm says, so serious Anderson feels sharp, awake, solid. Then Rahm's voice changes. 'But I never claimed to speak for the rest of the world.'
Resigned, Anderson reaches for his Blackberry. 'I'll talk to the producers. Give me a time frame.'
Rahm purrs, 'Good boy.'
---
In Anderson Cooper's email the day after Rahm Emanuel appears on a CNN segment explaining various changes in White House staff:
FROM: Stephen Colbert
TO: Anderson Cooper
SUBJECT: YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT, KID
BODY:
THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH I AM WILLING TO TAKE FROM YOUNG START-UPS, COOPER. YOU WATCH YOURSELF. I'M GOING TO GET YOU. AND THEN I'M GOING TO GET EMANUEL, BUT DON'T THINK I'M EVER TURNING PI RADIANS FOR YOU EVER, EVER AGAIN, O SIR MOUTHPIECE OF THE GOVERNMENT.
---
'Rahm?' Anderson calls a few days later from somewhere down in Thailand where he's tracking a case of human trafficking.
It's been a week worth of heat and darkness and the worst parts of humanity; Anderson wonders if it's his fault for staying at home too long covering politics, his fault that it all hits him a little bit too hard now that he's back on the ground and returned to proper journalism. Some of the things he's seen he never wants to forget, but the images when burned into the back of his mind keep him awake, wired, itching for change.
'Cooper?' Rahm picks up even though it's three in the morning in the United States. 'Why the fuck are you calling me?'
'You can afford the long distance bill, sir,' Anderson says, then adds, more quietly, 'You're the only one who was likely to be awake.'
There's a five second silence, filled with static. Then Rahm says, 'Get your fucking act together.'
'I know,' Anderson says, rubbing his brow. He's been awake for roughly thirty eight hours, he and the crew having just got back from the trip out on the ground. Rest is still the farthest thing from his mind. 'Why do you think I called you?'
'I'm not your personal cheerleading team, Cooper,' Rahm says, but there's no bite in his voice. 'You've got five minutes, and then I have to get back to making sure less important people don't fuck up.'
Anderson manages a chuckle. 'The enormity of your personality never fails to surprise me, Rahm.'
'Don't make me laugh,' Rahm says.
Anderson fiddles with his Blackberry as they talk, exchanging updates from DC and tidbits from his coverage, the both of them winding down. Anderson's surprised to see that his personal folder is more full than it usually is; he opens it, and then barks out a laugh.
'What the fuck?' Rahm snarls into his ear. 'You find amendments to the minimum wage funny?'
'No, no, it's not that,' Anderson says, flicking through the thirteen odd emails from Stephen, all of them variations on the same theme. 'It's just, Stephen Colbert.'
There's a certain amount of satisfaction in Rahm's voice when he says, 'Yes, I'd laugh at that man too.'
'He's desperate to get you on his show.'
'That's something else you and I both find funny, then.'
'You could just relent. Maybe he'd stop abusing my inbox.'
'He's abusing your inbox?'
'Rahm.'
'I didn't say anything, Cooper. Doesn't matter, your cry-baby time's up. Fuck off and go do some good work. I'll see you when I see you.'
---
In Jon Stewart's email the day after Rahm Emanuel appears on The Daily Show talking about healthcare reforms in 2009:
FROM: Stephen Colbert
TO: Jon Stewart
SUBJECT: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
BODY:
YOUR STUDIO IS RIGHT NEXT TO MINE. YOUR SHOW, MY SHOW, WE'RE FAMILY. AND YOU DO THIS? YOU HAVE HIM ON YOUR SHOW AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO UNLOCK THE ENTRANCES AND EXITS AND ALSO THE FIRE ESCAPE UNTIL AFTER YOU'RE DONE FILMING? SNEAKY, BY THE WAY, BUT STILL, IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL. IS THIS A LIBERAL CONSPIRACY?
Jon Stewart, in reply to the message above:
FROM: Jon Stewart
TO: Stephen Colbert
SUBJECT: Don't yell at me
BODY:
The audience voted for him, and I didn't think he'd agree, but he did, and that's all there is to it. Calm the hell down, Stephen. Just let it go.
---
Stephen almost breaks something when he finds out that Emanuel's due to appear on O'Brien. Jon has to grind up half a sleeping pill and mix it into Stephen's post-show drink, and then he puts Stephen into a cab and takes him back - ranting quietly and drowsy - to Stephen's apartment before putting him to bed. Jon plucks out the television cables when he leaves the house.
---
In Rahm Emanuel's (personal, filtered, spam-guarded-by-three-different-pieces-of-software) email:
FROM: Anderson Cooper
TO: Rahm Emanuel
SUBJECT: ?
BODY:
Rahm, why are you turning up on every talk show and news pundit segment except for the Colbert Report?
---
When Anderson next goes out with Jon and Stephen for breakfast, he makes the mistake of leaving his cell phone in his jacket pocket, which he then makes the mistake of leaving slung over his chair when he goes to make his order.
'Stephen,' Jon says from behind his newspaper. 'Don't do it, man, I'm warning you.'
'Just this once,' Stephen says, and he plunges his fingers into Anderson's pocket coat and scrolls through the names on Anderson's phone until he hits "R".
---
When Anderson ends up in hospital with a minor case of dengue after getting back from god-knows-where, Rahm pays a visit, sitting in a chair by Anderson's bed and smiling because he enjoys the look of speculation and fear in the eyes of the nurses as they pass by the Secret Service personnel at the door.
Anderson, still weak but on the road to recovery, shakes his head and comments about schadenfreude.
'Schadenfreude?' Rahm says. 'That's not my source schadenfreude. My source is far more persistent and fucking hilarious to lead along. Did you know that your friend Colbert somehow got his hands on my private number?'
That makes Anderson sit up a little too fast; Rahm presses him back into the bed as Anderson asks, 'How?' Realisation only dawns a few minutes later - no wonder Jon called to say "watch out, he's crazy and he's desperate." 'My god, I'm sorry, Rahm. He must've somehow-'
'It's not your fault; you're a pretty close-mouthed bastard, I know,' Rahm says. 'And it's been funny watching him squirm.'
'Well,' Anderson admits. 'He always has a few new outrageous proposals every time I see him. I'm starting to take pity on him, though. You've been cruel.'
'Only because you have such funny friends,' Rahm says, standing up and buttoning his jacket as he goes. 'Crawl out of bed soon, Cooper.'
'Have some mercy on him,' Anderson calls out after Rahm.
Rahm gives him a four-and-a-half wave goodbye.
---
One day, when Stephen least expects it, Rahm calls him. Stephen literally feels his heart stop. And Rahm says to him, slowly and cheerfully, I think I'm going to go on Jay Leno.
Stephen feels the rage building up inside of him, and then Rahm says, Unless you can make me a better offer.
---
Jon catches up with Anderson somewhere near the CNN studios a few days after the younger man gets out of hospital and certified fit. Jogging on the spot to keep warm in the cold December air, Jon says to Anderson, 'You know that Stephen's going to get Emanuel onto the Report?'
'Yes,' Anderson says, smiling a little bit. 'He only emailed me twenty times.'
Jon makes a motion with his hand. 'Did you do it? Pull on your strings? Because Stephen says he promised not to humiliate Emanuel, or at least not as much as he's dreamed and plotted for years. That's not an olive branch anymore, there - from Stephen, that's the entire damn olive tree.'
'Something tells me that, even if he tried to humiliate Rahm, Stephen'd have a hard time,' Anderson laughs. It feels good to be home.
Jon shoots Anderson a look. 'Well,' he says slowly. 'You just go on helping your friends get along like that. Leave me way out of it and I'll be happy.'
Anderson hums.
Jon laughs.
'Want to go crash the recording? I'll bring the popcorn.'
'So I guess I should bring the Kevlar?'
no subject
*WEEPS*
SOLITUDE? HOW CAN YOU BE ALONE WHEN THERE ARE, LIKE, MILLIONS OF YOU ON THE INTERWEB.
no subject
But, there's so many of us because we've all propagated ourselves virally. There's really only one real Australian, spread all over the internet, and that's why 'we' are all insane enablers of sun-dazed crack.
mmm, Australian crack. What you see at Bondi. Propagation takes place over in the sand dunes.
no subject
.... what... dundee... spam...
Also, mono-Australian spore spam, mmmmmm.
no subject
gay pick up jointnudist beach in the world. Like, seriously, who else but Australians would put one of the largest dog beaches smack bang next to the only nudist beach, like, SERIOUSLY???Spread us on toast. We taste exactly like vegemite. :D
no subject
... dog beach next to a nudist -- what are they trying to achieve? Sexiness In Shit?
no subject
Vegemite's great. It's your year's worth of yeast intake in a single teaspoon. Now that's efficiency of consumption!