Fic: Laws of Attraction, Keith / Rachel
Fic: Laws of Attraction
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Keith / Rachel unrequited
Rating: PG
Summary: From Worst Persons last night. Keith defends Rachel against Coultergeist.
Word Count: 682
“So our viewing audience doubts my raw sex appeal?”
Keith stopped in mid-stride down the hall. He’d already been thinking about what games were on tonight, which ones he’d let TiVo take care of, and which ones deserved some beer and whatever else was in the fridge the second he stepped into his apartment. Now Rachel poked her head out of one of the side rooms. She’d already scrubbed the make-up off her face and was back in a baggy t-shirt and jeans. Keith glanced at her feet and discovered, with a lopsided flicker of a smile, that she was walking around the studio in socks.
“Coultergeist apparently doesn’t,” Keith said. “How does it feel to get hit on by the incarnation of pure evil?”
“I’m all bubbly inside.” Rachel smiled back at him, giving a nod to his outfit before resting against the jamb. “Why don’t you change?”
“Because I am cultivating my raw sex appeal, thank you very much, and a suit is helpful to that effect.” Keith didn’t even bother with the make-up removal, even when he felt it caking his face, quite possibly adding another five pounds. From a distance it gave him a healthier glow, although up close a person could tell it was manufactured. It didn’t much matter. After work he was rarely up close with anyone.
Rachel stepped out from the room and the two walked side-by-side down the hall, towards the exit nearest the parking garages. She wasn’t wearing perfume, Keith noticed, realizing he couldn’t think of a time when she ever had. Not around him anyway. He could almost taste the molecules of cologne still floating around himself-something dark and almost spicy. Once, over a large dinner with colleagues, Rachel had jokingly asked him if they’d invented Smell-O-Vision yet. “So your viewers can get the full experience,” she cracked, waving her fingers around and beginning that twittering giggle that sometimes, but not always, made Keith certain that his suit was stupid, his make-up stupid, and his cologne most idiotic of all.
“I didn’t know she’d said that,” Rachel said.
“Because you don’t google yourself on a daily basis. A touch of narcissism, Ms. Maddow, hardly ever hurt anyone.”
“But I saw you doing rehearsals earlier,” Rachel said. “You didn’t use her whole quote. Not the part about me.”
“Because you would have wanted us to drop it.”
“That’s true. I mean I appreciate it, but Keith…” Rachel paused, although they kept walking. “The news isn’t about us.”
“What?” Keith opened his mouth into an O, lifting his brows and diving into comedic flounder. “Who’s going to tell Coultergeist? And Billo? And, and-” He waited until he got a smile out of Rachel, the one that squeezed the corners of her eyes into little slits, gave her laugh lines.
“I’m just saying,” Rachel said, with a rolling gesture of her hands, “don’t let them turn your show into a yelling match. If you try to respond to everything they ever said about us, Countdown would be ‘Time to Drunkenly Hurl Objects at the Stupid People, with Mr. Angry Keith Olbermann!’”
“I hope that’s not supposed to be catchy. Tempting, though.” Keith saw the exit upcoming as they turned a corner. He still hadn’t said what he’d meant to say. He’d forgotten how easily Rachel, with her height, could keep up with his pace. He frowned and forced his steps to come marginally slower.
“What she said was out of line,” he told her.
Rachel shrugged. “So are half the things that come out of anyone’s mouth. It’s just most people aren’t bloggers with much political say or sway.”
Keith frowned again. “So a friend can’t protect your honor, Ms. Maddow?”
She laughed, a burst of high syllables. Keith enjoyed them less this time around.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she said. She gathered herself, stopping in the hall, and took Keith firmly by the shoulders. “Thank you for reasserting that my viewership is more interested in my mind than my breasts.”
Keith kept his eyes fused to her face. “Any time, Rachel. Any time.”
end