this was much more about me indulging my need to write about my mental illness then it was about joelay, but hey whatever

Title: Numbers

Warnings: Based around OCD and Insomnia

Word Count: 348

Joel stared up at the ceiling and counted the tiles again. He knew that just because he was counting again didn’t mean that it would be any different from the first time. There would still be forty three, an annoyingly odd number that made him uncomfortable when he got to it.

He counted the words in conversations, the syllables in songs, and the amount of times he locked every door in the house. Even numbers, even numbers, even numbers. Ray had three letters. Ray Narvaez Jr. had twelve numbers, and Ray Narvaez Junior had sixteen. Joel had these memorized, of course.

Ray had two pairs of glasses and thirty eight shirts. That was also an uncomfortable number, but he wasn’t going to make his boyfriend get more or get rid of articles of clothing just because the numbers made him uneasy.

Numbers ran Joel’s life. Stocks and gold and gambling and computers, all numbers. Everything was numbers, until Ray. Try as he might to put Ray into numbers, with his gamerscore and the letters in his name and the five birthmarks on his skin, he couldn’t. Ray was emotion, and Joel was numbers. Ray organized the numbers with his presence, he laid them out in order just as Joel was always wishing them to be.

But Ray couldn’t do that when he was asleep, and the numbers became mixed up again. They ran through Joel’s mind like ants, crawling around and making him feel uncomfortable. They couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t hurt him, and yet they were there.

He realized he was counting out loud, and desperately willed himself to shut the fuck up. ‘Ray is sleeping, and he doesn’t need to deal with your bullshit.’ He reminded himself, turning over to face what was an apparently very wide-awake Ray.

Joel snapped his eyes shut, hating himself for being such a weakling to these things. Ray wrapped his arms around the older man, getting as close to him as possible.

Then, Ray began counting.

Joel fell asleep when he hit forty three, and Ray followed soon after.