Unproductivity.
Critic could only slam the table in front of him to its side. in exasperation, letting all of its contents, including the paper he was writing on, fall to the ground. The books he spent hours organising had their covers fall back on old, pre straightened folds.
Critic stood up from his chair and stumbled about, walking in erratic, irritated circles. "...hhhh...GOD.. damn it. I cannot fucking write the whole CHAPTER again. Its almost friday..."
Some of the books fell onto creativity. The curse, or blessing, of instincts was not shared among the both of them, leaving his absence of reflexes painfully obvious, standing quietly and watching the other burrow himself in a hole of his own making.
"Critic.." Creativity mumbled under his breath. Trying to approach him patiently, avoiding making sudden movements. "Did you make a bet with Ego again?"
"Yes.. Now JP's going to point that out and hes never going to let me live that down and.. and.." Critic spiralled, his legs beginning to shake.
"My reputation." Critic turned his head sharply, gazing into his own haggard reflection in creativity's eyes.
"Its ruined." His eye twitches. 'It's ruined because I'm a failure. Because I'm a fraud who bites off more than he can chew."
Critic collapsed, leaning onto the wall shakily with arms hiding his face, knowing a mirror shouldn't be broken for simply showing what it sees. A personal, wriggling ache ate away at his main means of conformity and forced him to bear a set of mouth hooks and bloodshot eyes..
He uselessly wiped away endless tears and frothy spit, only truly succeeding in spreading his own mess.
Creativity simply stood there, knowing his colourful ideas of comforting would do little to brighten his friends outlook, knowing his fixation of black and white binaries.
A stray sheet of paper caught his attention, one that Critic was holding only moments ago. Creativity kneeled to pick it up and feel its rough texture, observing how its stained with frantic and frustrated rambling.
But among the scrawl and scribbling, he spots the paragraph he's stuck on:
Unknowingly, our hero bumps into a small child. He appears dirty and frail. He quickly apologises but shortly after disappearing, he finds that his coin pouch was missing.
"Is this the paragraph you're stuck on, Crit? What's wrong with it? It's perfectly fine, I think it's great."
"Pfft..oh my ...ffff-GAHAHA..."
To be fair, Creativity wasn't very hard to impress.
"Creativity. Oh my DEAR CREATIVITY. Do you even KNOW the definition of quality?? It's a TROPE. Creativity.. A TROPE. You know how tired audiences are of tired TROPES???"
Critic snatches the paper from creativity.
"This?! This isn't QUALITY. Quality doesn't.. RELY on TIRED TROPES that people could.. ,could..people... C..could.. avoid.." he can only feel his once powerful voice give out, pathetic whimpers draw out of dying sore throat.
Creativity approaches him, pulling up his own shirt to wipe tears and frothy drool from the other’s face.
Critic twists his head.
"…Is it true? Is it really? That I’m not someone worth listening to?” Creativity rubbed the other’s back gently. “That every..that ev..very.. moment I’ve put effort into was nothing but a.. a..waste ….of-wast.-wa…”
“Critic, please. Express yourself how you are.” Creativity leaned the other against the wall and held him gently. “I don’t need you to be productive right now. It will come naturally, you can force it some other time but forcing it now won’t let your brain do its thing and just makes you more frustrated.
Creativity tilts the others head up, smiling gently at Critic. “Ego isn't here right now, you don't need to be better than him."
“But who will?”
.
“If no one else will bear this weight, who will be responsible for the crushed remains?”
.
“It doesn’t have to be you.”
"All I want and ever wanted out of you, out of anyone was just.. to be as you are! If you aren’t the role model you want to be, I wouldn’t think of you any less. In fact, I’m flattered to know you better. And even if you wanted to be, you need to let yourself prepare for it.”
.
.
“Perfection requires patience, doesn’t it?”
