Disclaimer: I don't own them… not in the least.
Author's note: I don't love this little ditty but I thought the idea was cute. You know what I really don't have a whole lot to say about this but if you liked it you can thank Prue because she was the one who told me to post it. Hope you enjoy, feedback is loved and always welcomed.
Josh wasn't paying attention. His mind was on overload and if five more data points entered his brain; he was pretty sure gray matter would ooze out of his ears. He needed to decompress. In his right hand he had a pen, on his lap a note pad with crisp and clean papers. What happened next seemed natural.
The other people at the meeting noticed something was off. Josh's wasn't speaking and his attention was focused solely on the paper in front of him. Lou thought he might have been doing a crossword or a sudoku puzzle, but that idea was dismissed when she saw Josh grab Ronna's pen out of her hand because it was blue. He switched between the two colors; his hand working feverishly in short strokes. He looked up a few times and asked to borrow Bram's red pen. By the time the meeting was over Josh looked down at the paper and gave it a nod of approval.
"Um Joshua, would you like to share with the class what you've got there?" Santos smiled.
Josh covered up his paper with his hand, "Um No. But I think we should discuss the redistribution of money in the Western States."
Donna smirked, "We just spent ten minutes talking about that."
Josh blinked, "Oh." While his head was turned, looking at the clock above Santos' head, Annabeth grabbed the notepad from under Josh's hand.
"Look what I got!" She waved it around. Josh's eyes widen as she handed the paper over to Santos.
The Congressman studied the paper, "Would you like to explain this?"
Josh felt the need to stare at the table. "Um no."
Lou wiggled her eyebrows, "what is it, a dirty picture?"
"Well, it's a picture of some kind." Santos brought the picture closer to his face. "Do you guys want know what it is?"
The table cheered, Josh placed his head in his hands and sighed deeply. "Look I'm tired and Annabeth was talking about the importance of suits and their complementary colors to skin tone. I didn't care. I haven't slept in more then an hour a night in three weeks, so back off."
"Should we still embarrasses Josh?" Santos questioned the room.
For the first time since the campaign started everyone agreed.
Santos nodded and started to describe the picture, "Well at the surface it's a picture of a dragon fighting an elephant. But the dragon has donkey ears and a tail so I think it's symbolic of the Democratic Party."
"Dragons kick way more ass than donkeys." Josh muttered.
Santos continued, "Ok, but the Donkeydragon is fighting an aged elephant."
"It's a metaphor." The artist mumbled again.
"I see that, but who's the muscular man with a sword riding on top of the Dragondonkey?" The Congressman's right eyebrow raised slightly.
Josh's voice steady got lower, "That's the Brave Knight."
"Ah, I see. So whose are these bird/people creatures in the corner, the ones with the axes and knives?"
Josh rolled his eyes, "Well, duh, those are the Press Vulture Creatures who's try to slander the Dragaondonkey's every word."
Santos pointed to the picture again, "Well whose this?" His finger on a blue eyed, light hair woman.
"That's the damsel."
"She doesn't seem to be in distress, she's got a sword."
Josh's voice was low and filled with shame…"no, she's trying to protect the Knight and the Dragondonkey from the Press Vultures." Donna found herself blushing across the table as her eyes quickly averted to the wood grain on the table.
"Hmmm." Santos pondered the picture once more, "Yeah, the more you look at it you can see that she's got the knight's back."
Josh nodded to the table, "She always did."
Donna bit her lower lip.
"Josh one last question, who's this guy in the other corner?"
"That's Mike Piazza calling the Knight "Dude"." Josh coughed out.
Santos smiled back Josh, "Well if there was any question about your inner psyche this answered it."
Josh was three shades of red as Santos folded the picture and placed it in his pocket.
One by one people made comments about Josh and his doodle as they left the conference room.
Donna lingered behind straightening up the folders and pushing in the chairs until she finally stood next to Josh. "I think if this politics thing doesn't work out for you, you should consider art school." She placed her hand on his shoulder. His hand went on top of it, almost instantly.
He wanted to say he was sorry things had gotten so strained between them. He's brain screamed with words he longed to tell her. Instead, Josh smiled at Donna as they went back to work. Slowly their friendship returned and become more.
Several months later, Josh walked into his office feeling like he was finally home again. He placed his backpack around on the floor near his desk. As he turned on the desk lamp the gold ring around his finger shimmered. Briefly distracted by his own personal bliss he finally noticed the picture frame which arrived on his desk overnight. The frame contained a certain doodle with a post it note attached, "Thanks for helping the Donkeydragon slay the elephant."