Kendall's day was ruined from the start. After tiring himself out the day before with all the snow, he had forgotten to set his alarm. Stereotypically for somebody with OCD, Kendall required almost everything he did to be repeated in some way shape or form - this applied to his alarm, which rang at 7, 5 past 7, and 10 past 7 every single morning. He couldn't explain to anyone why it upset him so much when the 'little' things like this went wrong, but it did. So, that morning, when he woke at 26 past, he was instantly thrown into a state of panic.
"Kendall, what are you doing?" Carlos asked from his bed. What he was doing was pacing the floor, trying to figure out how he could 'fix' this.
"Don't worry, it doesn't matter." Kendall said after taking a second to process what he had asked. Eventually he came to a halt with a decision - he would just have to double all his other rituals for the rest of that day - of which he had a lot. He made sure Carlos had left for breakfast first, and then stood at the door, flicking the light switch on and off - he usually did this six times over, so now he had to do it twelve. He cursed his stupid disorder for making him waste his time on stuff like this. After he was finally finished, he dragged himself to breakfast after Carlos. He sat down next to James, who pulled him slightly away from the others.
"Carlos told me you're acting weird - what's up?" He asked, with good intentions but a lack of tact.
"I messed up my alarms, and now I'm scared everything's going to go wrong." Kendall said miserably.
"What's the worst that's going to happen?" James said reasonably.
"You could all die," Kendall said seriously. James raised his eyebrows. "I know it's stupid, okay?" He admitted before James could say anything.
"It's not stupid, you can't help it." Kendall sighed and rested his head on the table. It was tiring having to think like this all the time.
-
Later in the day, Kendall wasn't faring any better. He was getting more and more exhausted, both mentally and physically, and more and more upset. He was gradually convincing himself that nothing was working, and that something awful was going happen. It was the evening, and everyone was allowed to do as they pleased, so James was sitting in Kendall's room (with permission as long as the door was kept open - being alone with another patient was always considered a safety issue), while Kendall carefully tried to arrange the items on his bedside table perfectly. After doing this for the fourth or fifth time, he suddenly stopped, covering his face with his hands.
"Kendall?" James said, concerned. It wasn't until he heard ragged breathing from him that he realised he was crying. He stood up quickly, putting his arms around Kendall. "Oh Ken. Come on, it's alright."
"No it's not! Everything's going wrong, and I feel so stupid." Kendall's voice was muffled from where he had rested his head on James' shoulder.
"Stop saying that, you know it's not true. You're going to feel better in the morning, I know you are." As he spoke, James slowly sat back down on the bed, bringing Kendall down with him. He pulled away slightly to look at Kendall. He gently wiped away the tears staining his face with the pads of his thumbs.
"What if it's not?" Kendall asked.
"We can worry about that then." James said, holding on to Kendall's hand comfortingly.
"Are you sure?"
"Very," James kissed Kendall lightly, and squeezed his hand. "I need to go back to my room soon, are you going to be okay?" Kendall nodded. Now he was.
