toxicbaes | You must like being the victim, you've done nothing to get out

"That's my crush," Xue Yang explained to his hook-up, gesturing at Meng Yao, "We are roommates and I wanna date him but he likes playing hard to get."

That was one very unique way of viewing the situation. Whether it at all reflected how Xue Yang actually felt or if he was just teasing, that was a different question.

"Look, I-- You are really hot but I should get going. I don't wanna--" The man glanced uneasily at Meng Yao and Xue Yang burst out laughing. While he pulled the door shut and made sure it was locked.

"What, you find him off-putting? Xiao Yao, now you can feel insulted." Xue Yang stepped around the man to the wall, so he could let Meng Yao down. He moved over to him once he was lying on the ground. When he pulled out a knife and cut through all the rope restraining Meng Yao, one by one, the man flinched.

He moved to the door, trying the handle while looking at Xue Yang nervously.

"Get that tape off," Xue Yang instructed Meng Yao, "Look, we've freaked my date out. Tell him I'm just cute, xiao Yao. Or he won't wanna play."

Meng Yao lay there for a few moments, knowing he had limited time to follow commands before escalation but he couldn't make his arms move. They were numb and felt strange. He could finally move his limbs and they were sore. He stretched his legs out very slowly, whimpering as he did. He rolled onto his back and used what little strength he had in his hands to fumble around, looking for the back of the tape and unwinding.

It was a painful process, it was caught in his hair and pulls a generous amount out as he struggled to undo it, ignoring the man banging on the door and freaking out.

Once the tape was finally off, he cleared his throat and looked at the man and then Xue Yang. "You're cute..." He didn't want to fuck up again.

"Yeah, I'm cute. Exactly." Xue Yang reiterated it, then he petted Meng Yao's head approvingly before heading over to the guy. He wrapped his arms around him from behind and turned him so they were facing Meng Yao. Clearly he was having a good time. The man was not, looking panicked and barely making sense. "I also kill people. A lot. You didn't know that yet."

The man had paled, suddenly standing very, very still. He whimpered out a couple of 'please' that Xue Yang ignored. "You knew it, xiao Yao. But maybe you forgot. So I'll make sure you can never forget again."

He felt that was quite gracious. "So, you two will play for it. One of you two dies." Xue Yang gave the man a sudden shove, so he fell to the ground and into Meng Yao. "I don't mind who, really."

There it was. All the proof he needed. Xue Yang didn't care about him. He wasn't special. He had as much chance of dying as this ugly fuck he didn't really give two shits over. He was shaking and terrified because he knew that he had a very real chance of dying but what else could he do but play.

"What's the game then?"

He tried to school his face, keep in neutral, eyes on the competition. If he won this, he would survive. Then he would use Xue Yang's baseball bat to break the glass on the balcony and climb to freedom. There was no love. It was all just a game. Of course.

"Let's play a simple game. Gotta make it fair, xiao Yao. That guy is drunk and a dumbass, you're my smart boy. Can't make it too easy for you." He pulled a chair over and sat down behind the man, putting a hand heavily on his shoulder to keep him down. It elicited a whimper. Fun.

Xue Yang pulled out a pack of cards, handing them to Meng Yao. "Five cards. You both get to switch out three cards if you wanna. Then the highest hand wins."

Easy enough. And mostly just luck based.

"So it's dumb luck." Great. No skill required, just luck. He shuffled the desk and made sure that it was as mixed as it could be. Then he dealt five cards to the man and five to himself, setting the deck on the floor.

The old guy picked up his cards and Meng Yao looked at his curiously. Huh. Not a bad start. If he could just get two better cards, maybe he'd stand a chance of winning.

"Yeah. Dumb luck. Like when you run into a hot guy at a random bar. Or when some guy helps you once. Just dumb luck." Nothing special there, clearly. Xue Yang watched as they swapped out the cards. He was enjoying it, the way Meng Yao had gone cold. Calculating. That dark intelligence in his eyes.

He also looked at the man's hand, mostly looking at the cards. Also seeing how they were shaking.

Huh. Xue Yang calculated in his head, then snapped his fingers. "Don't reveal just yet. You each get to draw one card from your opponent. Put that card down without looking at it, then we do the reveal. Surprise for us all. You first, xiao Yao."

And as Meng Yao reached over, Xue Yang held a hand up behind the man, wiggling his middle finger.

Meng Yao paused and then frowned, looking at Xue Yang. The guy was shaking so hard, it was difficult to see what he was trying to gesture with but... did he mean the middle card? Why was Xue Yang helping him? He was actually helping him, right? Or we he sabotaging him? It was dumb luck. He couldn't predict Xue Yang any more than he could predict the card.

He leaned forward and took the middle card, setting it down without looking and then holding his cards out for the man to pick.

"We're only playing this round, right? Not best two out of three or anything?"

"Nah, I haven't got all night. I wanna kill someone and then get a good night's rest." Hey, he had a full time job. He yawned for show and then waited for the man to pick one of Meng Yao's cards. Then he gestured to them both. "Come on, guys. Reveal!"

The man laid down his four cards with shaking hands before reaching for the one he had pulled from Meng Yao. It was his highest card and he breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's good, right? That's high?!"

Was it high enough though? Xue Yang looked at Meng Yao and smiled. He knew that Meng Yao had lost. With the card he had pulled being the lowest, there was no way.

Meng Yao looked at the cards and felt anxiety take over. His hands were shaking because he had a horrible feeling. He revealed his own hand first, his good cards, and then the looked at the card that Xue Yang had taken for him. He flipped it over and looked at the fucking 2 of clubs. He stared at it for a moment, not shocked but hurt. A deep, unpleasant hurt that made his insides ache.

He really was nothing to Xue Yang and now he could finally kill him. It made sense, given how angry he had been. He just wished his life had been worth ... worth something.

Tears came down his face and he used his arm to wipe them away. He still had rope marks on his arms, they were so deep and red, almost purple. "I lost."

"Ah. Pity." Xue Yang shrugged, clearly not bothered in the least. The man on the other hand looked relieved, if still obviously unnerved. He turned to look at Xue Yang, eager to get away.

"I can leave?! Please, please just let me leave..."

"Huh." Xue Yang let out a laugh. "You don't care at all that he'll die then? Good to know. What a selfish bastard..." The world really was bad. "Anyway, yeah, you can go."

He shrugged, but stayed seated, holding a hand up. "You can go. But first you have to kill him."

Gesturing at Meng Yao, he smiled at the man. "Come on. It's easy to kill, big man like you can do it."

Meng Yao knew he could try and fight the guy but what was the point. Lan Xichen didn't want him, the Nies cut ties with him and his pathetic little obsession was ending with rejection as well. He looked at the man and then Xue Yang before he slowly pulled himself to his knees.

"At least my last days weren't lonely." Meng Yao told Xue Yang, tears in his eyes, smiling weakly. "I'm tired of being lonely. I want it to end."

Only he didn't and he was terrified. The man had the knife now and his body was shaking in fear as he looked at the much bigger man. Did he know how to kill him quickly? "Do it. Do it properly!"

"See? He wants to die. In the end, they all do." He had experience with making people want to die, at least. Xue Yang watched how the man's hand was shaking, so much so he almost lost the knife. "Are you dumb?"

Xue Yang finally got up, rolling his eyes. "I want you to kill him, not draw it out. Come on, that's just cruel. How hard is it to stab someone?"

Apparently very.

"I-- I can't, not when he looks like that..." The man sounded snively and pathetic. Very off-putting.

With a sigh, Xue Yang reached for the duct tape and walked over to him, using it to blindfold him. Just one strip over his eyes. "There. Now hold the knife properly and I'll guide you."

He stepped behind him, head propped up on his shoulder as he looked at Meng Yao. "Hold still, xiao Yao, yeah? I'll make sure it's fast."

"I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm scared. I want my mama." Meng Yao mumbled, wishing he was braver but that was all he could think about. Tears were streaming down his face and he hoped against hope there was an afterlife. That all of this would be over and he could just hide in her arms again. Things were easier then. Or were they. Nothing was ever easy.

He closed his own eyes now, shaking, trying not to listen to the ugly bastard that Xue Yang was hiding behind to kill him.

He meant so little to him, he wouldn't even stab him himself. All of this because he panicked over a blowjob. Seemed fair. "Please."

"Oh, for fuck's sake! Fine, I'll help you with the knife too." Clearly at the end of his patience, there was the familiar sound of the duct tape again. Xue Yang pulled some off and used it to fix the knife in the man's hand. Then, at long last, he basically forced him forward. "He's right in front of you. Just go for it!"

And he rushed Meng Yao, until there was an impact. Until there was the familiar sound of someone getting stabbed, the smell of fresh blood filling the room. Warm liquid spilled between Meng Yao and the man.

One of them had been stabbed. Only it was the man, not Meng Yao.

"Oops," Xue Yang said, with a smile. He let go of the dying man, taking a step back and looking at Meng Yao. "Aw, xiao Yao. So melodramatic. You just killed your first person, you should be happy."

Meng Yao had no idea what just happened. He was pale and he couldn't stop himself from shaking almost violently. He had expected to be stabbed, the man was coming at him so what happened. How was the knife in him and not himself. The man dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, his blood was coming along the floor towards Meng Yao. He cried out in horror and back himself away from the puddle.

He was twitching but his eyes were rolled in his head. He was dying.

"... He's dead?!" What the fuck? Did he just kill someone? How? What did he do? His legs gave out and he fell onto the floor, eyes wide with horror. "Wha-- I don't underst-- help." Something was wrong. "Help me, I don't understand."

"I pointed the knife at him when I taped it in his hands. C'mon, xiao Yao. A-Yao. I'd never let someone like that touch you. And I don't want you dead. I don't want you leaving me." Had he not made that clear often enough? Xue Yang realised that the blood was almost reaching Meng Yao, so he quickly closed the distance between them and got his arms around him.

He picked him up off the ground easily. Meng Yao weighed so little. "I just had to make you understand, yeah? Do you get it?"

Meng Yao wrapped his arms around Xue Yang, wanting to me against him and nowhere near the blood sweeping towards him. He shivered and as he tried to make himself calm down but he couldn't. It was too much. Everything was too much. He was crying so hard now, he was embarrassed by how pathetic he felt. He wasn't dead. Xue Yang saved him. He didn't want him dead. He mattered, right? He mattered.

"You picked me." Right? That was what happened. He was picked. Above anyone else.

"Yah." Obviously. Xue Yang headed for the door, still carrying Meng Yao. He unlocked it and stepped outside, letting it fall shut behind them. He could deal with clean-up tomorrow. For now, he headed for the bathroom because he really wanted a shower. "I just wanted to play the game."

He set Meng Yao down on the edge of the tub, then reached for the hem of his shirt so he could pull it off over his head. "You're my xiao Yao." He stood before him, half-naked, putting a hand on Meng Yao's shoulder. "You'd just pissed me off, so..."

"I'm yours?" Meng Yao asked, his mind completely dulled with shock. From the dead man in the room to his own almost death and everything else in between, it was like his brain was entirely shutting down and all he could focus on was how softly he was touched and how Xue Yang was so warm and nice to be close to.

Dazed, he looked at Xue Yang, his eyes slightly out of focus. "I'm sorry I pissed you off. I won't do it again. I'll try my best. I promise. Don't hate me any more."

"Psh. Don't be so dramatic again, who hates you? I never did. Told you, you just pissed me off." Xue Yang finished stripping off all the way, then he got into the shower, pulling Meng Yao along with one arm. He stood under the water and let it wash off sweat and blood and, in Meng Yao's case, tears.

Better already. "Your face when you saw what that fatty looked like." He had to grin. "Were you jealous?"

Meng Yao shivered as the hot water hit him and it felt amazing. His body was hurting from prolonged suspension and his joints were aching despite how supple they were. He leaned heavily against Xue Yang and lifted his hand, using it to wipe as his face. This was one of the worst nights of his life, worse than when Lan Xichen told him who he was dating. It was like his insides ripped apart so much that he was afraid they still wouldn't go back together.

He thought Xue Yang didn't want him any more. "I didn't understand why you picked him of all people. I thought you wanted to hurt me as much as you could." That he was so little that any old bastard would have him instead. "Do you want me to be jealous?"

"I thought it'd annoy you the most. Get under your skin." So, yes, he supposed he had wanted to hurt him as much as he could. "Anyway, I didn't wanna run into anyone I know so I went to a different bar. All the old married guys go there and pick up rent boys. Honestly, if I hadn't killed him I could have probably gotten a nice payment out of it."

There was that. Xue Yang grinned at him, then nodded. "Of course I want you to be jealous. It's fun! Jealousy is-- It's proof you care, isn't it? I want you burning with envy over anyone else even getting to look at me."

"You need it to be strong to feel real." Meng Yao spoke more to himself than anything as he stood there, letting the water rain down on him for a few moments as the cogs in his head turned and finally, he could think. Nothing felt real unless it was intense, dramatic, like a BL. Like the shows he was so addicted to.

Moving away from Xue Yang, he turned around and placed a hand on Xue Yang's cheek, making the other look at him and bracing himself in case he hit him. "I want you to be mine. Only mine. I'll always be yours so it's only fair if you're mine too."

That made sense, so Xue Yang nodded his head. "Sure." Although he did have to let out a short laugh then, lifting his shoulders slightly. "Life's not fair though."

Still, he kind of liked it. That Meng Yao wanted him like this, that he was making demands. That he wanted it so absolutely. As he had said, it made it feel more real. "So, what? You want me to only fuck you?" Was that what it was about? Guess we really ought to go clubbing together."

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