ALL I WANT

1.9k

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                Something crashes in the back, sending Yixing to bolt upright on the couch, blanket clutched tight to his chest. His eyes are wide, focusing on the flashing lights from the television in the darkened living room. The red lights from the Christmas tree in the corner make the room look macabre and mysterious (he’s told his parents that they should have taken the tree down days ago).

A cold draft wafts inside, ruffling his hair, and sending shivers down his spine. “Cold is a sign of the paranormal,” Yixing says under his breath. He pulls the blanket up so his chin is tucked in nice and snug and the throws glances left and right. The room suddenly goes dark as if the television has turned off and all that lights the room are the red lights from the Christmas tree.

There’s skittering from the hallway before the living room and Yixing ducks under the blanket and curls up against the backrest of the couch. A little toy poodle runs up to Yixing, spins in a circle to face the cowering boy and yaps twice.

“What is it, Moo?” Yixing asks the dog quietly. The dog in response runs a circle around the room and stops before the hallway to bark in the direction at nothing. Yixing watches the dog continue to bark, its small tail slowly sinking between its legs. A loud CLUNK! Sounds from somewhere at the end of the hall and the little dog goes sprinting off in the opposite direction into the kitchen where it hides out in its kennel.

Yixing glances in the direction of the hallway. “Hello?” he calls out from the comfort of his couch. He turns to the television, reaching for the remote to turn it on for extra light. The screen flashes on to a startlingly gruesome picture of a brutally murdered corpse and Yixing yelps, frantically trying to change the channel. It takes him a while to remember that he had been watching the first season of American Horror Story on his laptop and had to switch out of the HDMI setting in order to get rid of that horrifying image.

Panicking, he turns the television off again and grabs his cellphone, turning it on for some light. He has to convince his parents now to take down the tree now; he’s not comfortable with it painting the room blood red even with its good intentions and cute ornaments. But how should he tell them without sounding like a wuss because “the red lights freak me out at night” doesn’t sound like the manliest of complaints.

He shuffles to the hall, dimly light by the single light fixture in the middle. “Hello?” he calls out again, shining his cellphone light towards the end of it. The light touches the door at the end of the hall – his room – slightly ajar. He remembers clearly that he had shut the door before making his way to the living to spend the night having a marathon of his newly addictive television series, American Horror Story.

He should have known it would have this effect on him. He can’t believe Jongdae’s got him ered into watching it, knowing fully well that even if the show “wasn’t scary” Yixing would be imagining things left and right afterwards. No matter how good the series was, now all Yixing could think of were ghosts, spirits, and the supernatural.

A low whine sounds from behind him and Moo has made his way shake and shiver at Yixing’s ankles. “It’s okay, boy,” Yixing says soothingly, crouching over to pet the dog without his eyes leaving the door to his room. “Is there something there?” He asks the dog. In reply, Moo ducks under his hand to cower behind him and Yixing gulps.

He gets back up and inches his way into the hall. He’s hit with a chill; not a breeze as if a window was left open, but a steady front of cooler air that gets colder as he makes his way down the hall. Yixing gulps, “Hello?”

He’s thinking about turning around and holing back up in the sofa and calling Jongin for comfort because in all his life, he did not think he needed to be prepared for this. He was not trained in exorcisms nor did he think he needed to. He should’ve grabbed cloves of garlic in case – and did his mother have a vial of holy water somewhere in the house? What if there was an intruder? Someone come to kill him? It wasn’t smart to confront the unwanted guest in a closed-off room. The person who checks the rooms was always the person to die in the movies, so why was he now standing in front of his room, hand outstretched, and fingertips grazing the doorknob?

“Is someone in there?” Yixing questions, voice shaking like a leaf in the wind. He grasps the doorknob, noting that it was cold as ice, and pushes in. The door slowly opens, revealing nothing but darkness. Yixing’s whole body is shaking in fright now, his heartbeat is hammering in his ears, and his nerves are tighter than strings on a guitar.

A dark figure swoops in front of him and Yixing yells in a very non-manly fashion, cellphone dropping to the ground as he instinctively curls up into a ball at his feet. “Pleasedon’tkillmepleasedon’tkillmepleasedon’tkillme,” he chants, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Surprise!” A low, familiar voice says before him and Yixing wails into his knees.

“Please don’t kill me, I’ve done nothing wrong, I didn’t ask for this,” he cries into his legs, arms wrapping tighter around his shins.

“What do you mean? This is exactly what you asked for.”

“No, I don’t want to die,” Yixing responds, trembling on the floor. Wait. He pauses, catching his breath as it comes out in ragged bursts. Why does the voice sound so familiar? Is my killer someone I know? Statistics show that murders end up people you know. Or was that statistic for rapists only? Maybe it could apply to both.

Yixing in a deep breath and peeks up over his arms. The figure scoops forward and Yixing flinches, screeching loudly as images of bodies being sawed by the limbs or hacked away with an axe fill his imagination.

“Jesus, ‘Xing, quiet down.” The figure says and Yixing pauses. There’s only one person in the whole world who calls him that. No, it can’t be him. He can’t be my murderer.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Yixing chants, not wanting to accept his fate.

He feels hands place on his knees and he cries out, flailing away from the intruder. “Yixing, babe, it’s just me.” Yixing howls again feeling betrayed and broken as tears race their way down his face. It was only in movies where the person you thought you loved ended up wanting to kill you and chop you up to bits to stuff you in a freezer in the basement.

“Why?” He wails.

“Jesus frickin’ Christ, Yixing, what has gotten into you? I swear I’m gonna kill Jongdae for getting you into that show. I told him you’d be scared.”

“No,” he cries out, “Don’t kill him!”

“Shh,” the intruder says, reaching out to hold him only to have Yixing bat him away. “Stop it Yixing. Stop it right now.”

Yixing cowers away at the raised tone. “Sorry,” the other says. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in unannounced, but I didn’t think you’d respond like this.”

Yixing sniffles in response, furiously wiping away tears that obscured his vision. “Jongin, are you going to kill me?” he says quietly.

“For Christ’s sake, no. No, Yixing, I’m not going to kill you nor Jongdae even though I really want to throttle him right now,” Jongin says before stopping himself at the sight of Yixing wincing at the word ‘throttle’.

“Remember what you said you had wanted for Christmas last time I asked you?” Jongin asks.

“A car?” Yixing answers, thinking back to their last conversation about Christmas gifts. He’s calmed down now, but still wary of what his boyfriend was doing in his house and how he got there in the first place. “Did you get me a car?”

“No.” Jongin says, eyebrows furrowing at how dense his boyfriend could be at times. “No, think of what you said after you said you wanted a car.”

Yixing pauses and thinks. “I didn’t ask to die.”

“For God’s sake, Yixing, I’m. Not. Going. To. Kill. You.” Jongin says exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair. Who knew meaningful gestures never went easy? “Okay, never mind. But right after you said you wanted a car and I asked you to be more realistic, you said you just wanted to cuddle and watch movies with me all night, remember?”

Yixing stops to think. “Yes, now I do, thank you for yelling at me because it seems to have helped me regain my memory back,” he answers with a sharp line of a frown.

“Look, I’m sorry for scaring you. But anyways, we both knew it was impossible for me to be with you Christmas day because we have a ton of family things to do and all.” Jongin’s expression softens and Yixing’s heart flutters a little at the sight of those pouty lips curving into a smile. “But I’m here now and I’ve brought that blanket of mine you love snuggling under and your favorite Christmas movie – Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. So I’m here to grant you your Christmas wish and if you’ll stop screaming bloody murder, I’ve also brought my grandma’s homemade cookies.”

Jongin gets up and ducks into Yixing’s room to produce said blanket, movie, and cookies. Yixing’s expression softens and he gathers himself to his feet. He chuckles a bit, laughing at himself for being so stupid and uncool because now Jongin probably thinks of him as a baby who’s afraid of the dark and he’s forever embarrassed because he cried in front of him.

“All better now?” Jongin asks, wrapping an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulder protectively.

Yixing nods. “Quick question though,” he starts as they make their way towards the living room, “How’d you get in?”

Jongin flicks his head back into the direction of Yixing’s room. “Your bedroom window wasn’t locked so it’s easy to crawl in and out if you open it from the outside.” He glances over at Yixing, panic coloring his irises. “So if you’re afraid of intruders and axe murderers, I suggest you put locks on them and start locking your windows when you don’t use them.”

Yixing turns his head to look at Jongin in fear once they step into the living room. Jongin takes a good look at the room painted red thanks to the Christmas tree. “And you’re right. The red Christmas lights don’t look good.”

Days after Yixing’s mild (not really) scare and cuddle session, Yixing spends his Christmas money on a pocket knife, pepper spray, and can’t convince his parents to put in a new alarm system for the house or at least put locks on the windows.

“I’ll just protect you from all the bad guys in the world,” Jongin says smugly, side-glancing his boyfriend as they walk up and down the lock and door knob aisles of their local hardware store.

“You know, statistics say that most murderers are people you know,” Yixing says, fingers grazing a complicated lock.

“Isn’t that statistic for rapists?”

“Same difference.”

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Happy early Christmas! 
idk if my subbies will get this, since most of you subscribe to my more popular fics than this

but I had to write this after indulging myself in American Horror Story ((its so good you see))
so i had to write about my babies ^-^