#not 100% on this

[rocknrollsalad]

STWG Daily Prompt (Nov 19) - ADHD

✏️ pairing(s): stonathan

🖊️ Steve can't really focus or accomplish this task he doesn't even want to do. Of course, it's something he needs to do. Jonathan steps in to help in a few ways that really benefit Steve.

📄 content/trigger warnings: fire, house fires (hypothetical)

✏️ word count: 1343

“All you have left is the essay,” Jonathan said, shaking blank notebook pages in the air. They crinkled with anger his voice didn’t have.

“I’ve tried to write it, like, fifty times! I sit down at my desk and I think ‘yeah, this is it, I’m going to write this!’ and then I think ‘wow, when was the last time I washed the bath mats’ and then I’m downtown grabbing pizza with Dustin. Robin says it’s classic fear of failure. They can’t reject me if I don’t apply.”

“So glad she took Psych 101.”

“She’s kind of wrong though, right?” Steve stopped his pacing to look over at Jonathan, who still wore the same disappointed look that Steve so desperately wished had left by now.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I mean, we know they’re going to reject me. I don’t have to be afraid of it.”

And there the look goes. It’s replaced by this sadness Steve usually only sees sent Will’s way when he’s not looking. It doesn’t feel like an improvement.

“I just want to do something meaningful but I could, like, get a job at a pet shelter or something. That’s good. Old people need read to…okay, yeah. I see the problem with that one but you know what I mean.”

“Or you could do this and follow your dreams or whatever.”

Jonathan tossed the paper down on Steve’s desk the same way Steve’s dad did back when he helped with homework. All of it brought up this feeling of failure. Not of not knowing because Steve knew the stuff but yet he couldn’t sit down and get it on paper. Something that came so easily to other people, he couldn’t do. It frustrated his dad, mom, teachers, exes, and now Jonathan. A tradition Steve didn’t need to carry on.

He didn’t know how to distract Jonathan, how to switch the subject, and find something else to focus on. It wasn’t like he could bribe the guy or tempt him with a swimming pool they both avoided like the plague. Maybe Steve would get lucky and he’d be hungry.

As Steve ran through his choices, Jonathan was off doing his own thing. Something that collided when he put a Rubix Cube in Steve’s hand. “What the hell is this for?”

“Solve it,” he said simply.

“It’s impossible. You think I haven’t tried?”

“It’s not impossible.” Sitting down at Steve’s desk, no doubt rolling his eyes first, Jonathan looked back and silently added, “Get on with it.”

“Seriously, I’ve had this thing forever. It’s never going to be solved.”

“Okay, well Jim got one whole side green except the corner and it sits on our mantel like a Nobel Peace Prize. I never really thought he was smarter than you but maybe I was wrong.”

“No, no, no. I’m way smarter than Hopper. I can’t be–”

“Show me what you can do then.”

This almost felt like bait and Steve stared across the room through narrowed eyes, trying to figure it out, but decided it was the distraction he was looking for. Jonathan could do whatever and Steve had a fun but old problem to solve because he was definitely better than the former chief of police.

Wandering around the room, Steve shifted the block a couple of times as he studied what was where and what moved to where. He started to get a bit of plan when Jonathan perked up from what he was doing.

“If your house was on fire, like, right now…what would you save?”

“Am I the only one here? I mean, you, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he said with an eye roll Steve got to see this time.

Blowing a kiss back, Steve looked down to make sure he’d connected the two oranges.

“I think it’s safe to assume the people are out of the way. You and I were cooking, grease fire sort of thing and we got out in plenty of time. The fire department is on the way but things are catching fire fast.”

“Okay, just as easy. Mom would die if her photo albums didn’t survive. There are ones in there of when SHE was a kid. So I’d grab those but I feel like I’d also have time to grab some clothes. At least for you and I but maybe for my parents. Just, ya know, so we had something.”

“Clothes?”

“It’s kind of stupid but even if the firefighters put everything out before it wrecks our closets, the stuff is going to smell like smoke so it’s all gonna need cleaned. You know as well as I do how much changing into clean clothes makes things feel better.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“So, yeah. I’d grab us stuff like that. How much time do I have? I could get toothbrushes. If Mom and Dad are on vacation, they’ll be fine. It’s just me and you and mom’s pictures.”

“What about all these trophies?”

“What about them?” Steve scoffed, looking up and back down to work another orange onto the face he was working on. “A bunch of achievements that mean nothing, especially now. No one is impressed by this. Least of all me.”

Steve had resumed pacing in a circle at the foot of his bed. As he clicked the cube in all directions, he’d started to figure out how it worked a little better than he ever had before. A line of three was already beating his personal record but it was also giving him confidence he could complete the whole thing.

Jonathan was scribbling on paper and as much as Steve wanted to know what, he was too focused on this stupid cube.

They continued like this for a while. Jonathan asked a bunch of weird questions, they talked back and forth about the answers, and Steve wandered his room. Orange didn’t pan out but he was now halfway to a white face.

It was trying to get the sixth one in that was really starting to boil Steve’s blood. He knew how it needed to happen but wasn’t able to get it to work. Not wanting to mess up what he had too much to get the rest.

That was the same time Jonathan stepped up and placed and hand on top of the now messed-up side Steve had just clicked into. Looking at him to ask if he was looking to be murdered today but met with the softest smile. Immediately disarmed, Steve was left with comical annoyance.

“So you have a whole essay here. One that shows who you are and how you obnoxiously don’t think about anyone other than yourself. Not that it's worded that way, though. It’s good and any college would be stupid not to take you. You’re not bad at this, you’re bad at sitting still though.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“You don’t say it like it’s a good thing.”

“Well, you’ll have to do a lot of it for a while if college is where you want to go. Starting later tonight, okay?”

“What! Why?” Steve’s head drops backward as he whines.

“Because I can’t write it for you. It’s gotta come from you but I got you a whole outline, quotes to work off of, it’s going to be turning it all around to get the cubes right okay? Make the puzzle work, it's easier than starting from nothing.”

“After dinner?”

“I don’t know, I might try and tire you out after dinner. See if that helps your focus.”

Before Steve’s brows can completely furrow everything clicks and his eyes go wide. “I have a lot of energy right now, I think.”

“Go for a fucking run then.”

There wasn’t any bite behind that but Steve was willing to play around and let Jonathan think he was hard to get. Tossing the Rubik’s cube to the desk, Steve played the game and he played it well. They had loads of time to “tire him out” before dinner. And maybe…if he was lucky, they could drag him through this essay too.

[datasoong47]

[aromanticduck]

I find it kind of stupid how 'half full' vs 'half empty' is framed as an optimist/pessimist thing. If it starts full and gets halfway drained, it's half empty. If it starts empty and gets halfway filled, it's half full. If you don't know the starting state it's both simultaneously.

[roboticnebula]

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

Always great when this is the thumbnail of the weeks forecast

[dxppercxdxver]

physically incapable of being upset by being rickrolled. if it’s well executed i get to engage in the playful wink-nod with the jokester. and if it’s obvious. well then i just get to see my beautiful friend rick astley

[ramshacklefey]

Kind of hilarious to me how poorly the title "Mob Psycho 100" localized to English-speaking areas. To someone whose first language is English, it scans as:

Mob (Yakuza, Mafia)

Psycho (violent person with "crazy" behaviors)

Thus: a particularly violent member of organized crime.

But in Japanese it scans as:

Mob (background characters in crowd scenes in manga or anime)

Psycho (short for psychic)

Thus: a psychic who looks/acts like someone you'd never pick out of a crowd scene in a comic.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

me seeing a mutual's happy post: "hell yeah buddy :)" *hits like*

me seeing a mutual's sad/vent post: "aww no buddy :(" *hits like*

[tree-whispering]

[starbuck]

“…to me” is one of the most powerful disclaimers we have on here… is this character analysis accurate? debatable. but it’s real… to me.

[sapphotash]

has anyone done this yet

(click for higher quality)

[datasoong47]

[aromanticduck]

There's wholesome ships and there's toxic ships, but I'd like to coin 'sodium chloride ships', where the individuals involved are both horrible and dangerous people, but somehow being together renders them surprisingly well-adjusted (if a little salty).

[artsymeeshee]

Felt a need to draw hugs (thinking about sea grunks has made me extra emotional :’))

[boyteal]

was having a minor crisis but this appeared in my head and it was so stupid it just snapped me right out of it