#adhd!john

Brian and John! They both had things for building! The two of them could spend hours on the floor building one of those intense lego sets with a thousand pieces in blissful silence. They’d hand the instructions back and forth and work on different parts of the set and would forget to eat because of how in the zone they are. The only breaks are stimming breaks when they’re so excited or a little frustrated as they struggle to find a small lego. 

Christmas time is probably one of their favorite times of year. They buy each other kits and sets and spend hours at each others houses building away. 

John was usually always happy to do the band’s finances. He liked numbers and equations and the like. Most times, he would find himself in a intense daze of maths, working out their paychecks and spending lists for the month, without so much as getting distracted once. That was his thing, really.

But today, he couldn’t tell you what went wrong. 

It started with his feet. As he penciled in a number, his foot started tapping. And then it went to bouncing his leg. And then he kept changing the position he was sitting in. And then he was chewing on the pencil.

Fidgeting was no big deal. It annoyed the hell out of every one, but sometimes it helped him focus or get excess energy out.

It didn’t stop with that though. He’d be writing something down and when he looked at it, instead of seeing numbers, he’d see the word “Queen” written in bubble letters. Or before he could finish some addition, he’d be standing up, peering out the window. 

And the part that flustered him was that he simply could not control himself. There was no forcing himself to stay in his seat. One minute he’d be doing what he needed to be doing and the next he was off somewhere, without having even realized he’d left. Without any thought process into leaving his chair. 

Impulse control was the hardest to deal with on these days. He’s already left the room to go get some fizzy drinks from a vending machine twice and got distracted by playing in the recording booth. 

By the time he realized what he was doing, he had only finished half of the first of many pages that needed to be done. 

“Goddamit,” he groaned, setting his empty soda can on the table, looking down at all that still had to be completed. What was wrong with him? He loved this stuff! This was a hyperfocus of his. Why couldn’t he finish the bloody numbers?

John was getting ready to toss the papers everywhere when the door opened, a cheeky Roger stepping through.

“I heard moans of stress and thought I’d check in on you,” he said with a lighthearted smile. 

John just buried his face in his hands, letting out a long and exaggerated groan.

“My brain’s gone mad, I think,” he grumbled, face still hidden. 

Roger tsked, quipping, “I think Fred beat you in that department,”

He was able to get a snort out of John, but he quickly went back to sulking. He shoved the papers over to Roger, showing him the mess that was supposed to be this months finances. Roger looked them over, lips puckering as he got what John was whining about.

“Oh dear. Deacy, 1 plus 1 is not 4,” Roger said, looking at the little drawing of a Bass Monster.

John damn nearly wailed, forehead slapping against the table. 

“I cannot get myself to focus. I can’t. I’m wasting time. These are due tomorrow. Oh bloody hell,” he moaned.

Roger set the papers down, his eyebrows now furrowed. It was true, John had his issues with focus. Roger had witnessed John stop playing mid song to play with the knobs on a speaker. Or leave in the middle of a conversation to write stuff down. But he always got through it. He never let it impede on his life! So he said just that.

“Oh, Johnny boy. It’s okay. We all have bad days. You’ll finish this in no time. I know you will,” Roger said, giving John’s hair a quick pat. 

John sighed, shaking his head. “This is my thing. The thing I’m good at. I never get distracted when I do this. But I am. I’m fucking up and I don’t know why. And it makes me feel like shit,” he lamented, head still on the table, foot tapping loudly against the linoleum floors. 

Roger couldn’t help but to let out a snort. “You’re being far too hard on yourself! Relax a little. You have, what, 5 hours before you have to submit this?” he asked, trying to pry John’s head from the metal table.

“I can’t relax, that’s the issue here!” John said, holding his head up to glare at Roger. 

Roger held up a defensive hand at his poor choice of words, but continued on with his weird cheerleading. 

“Sorry. But- ugh. Look here,” Roger said, gathering the papers in his hands, getting up and plopping himself onto the chair next to John’s.

“I’ll help, alright?” he said, pushing the stack close to John who cringed when he saw them

“But you’re bad at maths,” John said, the insult coming out so innocently Roger couldn’t get mad. For long at least.

“Don’t make me get Brian in here,” he hissed. The thought of Brian trying to help him made John queasy. John quickly acquiesced.

“I thought so. Now, let’s start from the top. This line is for this months spendings and...”

 Line by line, Roger and John worked through every last paper, filling in every space and box and marking every last dot. John was right about Roger not being too good with arithmetic, but somehow they did it. 

By the end of it, John had only ran away 3 times! And Roger only got strangled once. With shaky hands and mussed hair, the handed in the forms to their managers, eyes watering as if they’d cry because it was actually done with.

Once out of the office, John couldn’t help but to pull Roger into a bear hug, profusely thanking him for saving his ass. 

“I could not have done this without you, mate. Truly, thank you. I- oh my god, there’s a bird outside,” John said, pointing to the window where a blue jay perched, letting Roger’s arms fall from the hug.

“Oh, well you know me, the greatest friend known t- a bird?”

“A bird,”

“I- You..you want to go outside and see the bird?”

“Uh, yeah,”

Freddie and Brian watched from a window as John and Roger ran in front of the building, chasing birds and throwing leaves at each other. 

“What do you suppose happened?” Brian asked, puzzled.