Archive of Our Own

"All I want to do is go to sleep," Xiao Zhan says, then stops, surprised, glancing around to see if the director heard him. He hadn't meant to say that. He's here to work and he understands that means long days and late nights and take after take, and that's what he's good at. He has endless patience for the process. He wants nothing more than to get this right.

Yibo blinks at him, looking slightly surprised himself, before tilting his head to the side and grinning. "You said you'd play me again," he says, more insistent than before. "Come back to my room after, I'll beat you. Two out of three, I'll beat you."

Xiao Zhan rubs his forehead, where a headache is forming right behind his eye. He's not even sure what video game Yibo is talking about. Yibo had been asking him if he wanted to come play, after they were done filming for the day. Xiao Zhan had meant to just ignore him—when Yibo gets like this, overtired and hyped up at the same time, sometimes ignoring him is the only thing you can do.

But the words had just come out, an unfortunate truth that Xiao Zhan is aching with exhaustion, even though he knows they have at least another couple of hours to go on set. It's nothing new, he's been this tired before and gotten through it, and he's not one to complain about the work that needs to be done.

The fact that the words had come out must mean he's more tired than he thought.

"Two out of three?" Yibo says again, insistently, and Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes and waves him off, as the call for places goes out.

Xiao Zhan settles himself, shaking out his shoulders, getting ready for the scene. He looks at Yibo and clocks the moment where, between one blink and the next, Wang Yibo becomes Lan Wangji. It's startling every time, and Xiao Zhan has to remind himself, over and over again, that Yibo is only twenty-one years old. The way he falls into the character so completely is such a transformation that Xiao Zhan can't help but be impressed.

"Action!" echoes across the set and Xiao Zhan lets it all fall away: the crew just off camera, the sounds of the set, the exhaustion that's starting to feel like a weight over his shoulders. All that matters is the scene, and getting it right.

The rest of the night goes by in a rush. It's after midnight before they shuffle onto the bus that will bring them back to the hotel. Xiao Zhan has curved past exhausted to overly stimulated. He's jumpy, can't stop jiggling his knee as he sits next to Yibo.

"Not tired anymore?" Yibo looks interested, his eyes sharp and focused, despite the fact that they've both been awake for longer than can possibly be good for them. "I thought you wanted to just go to sleep, Zhan-ge."

"Not anymore," Xiao Zhan says. His brain is buzzing. Why did he admit that? Now that he's said it, Yibo will never stop pestering him.

"Come to my room," Yibo responds instantly. "I'll beat you at the game, two out of three."

"Only because you look so pretty," Xiao Zhan says absently. Yibo's next to the window, and the lights from passing cars and street lights catch his profile, the curve of his lips, the cut of his jaw.

Yibo opens his mouth, then closes it again, staring at Xiao Zhan for a second before shaking his head, a hesitant smile on his lips as he says, "You're the pretty one. I keep telling people that."

Xiao Zhan rewinds in his head, and hears what he'd just said to Yibo. Weird. He hadn't meant to say that. He's been playing it up for the behind-the-scenes camera for too long, maybe, for it to just come out like that. "I am," he says around a yawn. "I am the pretty one. You're just a baby, it's easier for you to look so good."

He's got them back on even footing, Yibo giving him a grin and nudging him with his shoulder. "Sure you don't need to get some sleep, old man?"

Xiao Zhan yawns again. "I'd rather be with you."

Yibo's grin goes uncertain. "Zhan-ge—" he starts.

Xiao Zhan shakes his head, clamping his mouth shut so these ridiculous over-tired thoughts stop coming out.

"Two out of three," Yibo says, after a pause. "You'll play the game with me?"

Xiao Zhan nods, lips still tightly shut. He tilts his head back against the seat and shuts his eyes. He'll be fine. He'll beat Yibo after one more round, and then he'll go to sleep and wake up with his brain functioning tomorrow.

"You mind if I shower?" Yibo's dumped his bag on the floor of his hotel room and is scrubbing his hand through his sweaty hair. "It was so hot today. I sweated out my body weight, I think."

Xiao Zhan is still toeing his shoes off in the entryway of the hotel room, and it takes more of an effort than he'd thought it would to not say, "You look good sweaty." He swallows, and shakes his head, which Yibo takes as an assent and heads to the bathroom, swinging the door shut behind him.

"Can I watch?" Xiao Zhan says over the click of the door, then slaps a hand over his mouth, appalled. What is going on? Is he running a fever? Does he have heatstroke? What is wrong with him?

The water goes on in the bathroom and Xiao Zhan flops down on his back on Yibo's bed and scrubs his hands over his face. He's got to get it together. He's got to.

He's aware of Yibo's crush on him. He thinks everyone is aware of Yibo's crush on him. Yibo is introverted, is what he'd heard before filming. Yibo's quiet, maybe cold, maybe shy. Or, okay, definitely shy, and not friendly with strangers, so don't expect to be best friends with him.

Xiao Zhan understood that, respected that, but that wasn't the Yibo he'd been faced with since pretty much day one of the table read. Yibo made it clear from the start that he was drawn to Xiao Zhan like a plant is drawn to the sun. Xiao Zhan has asked himself time and again if Yibo just has no shame about his crush, or if he thinks he's hiding it. Xiao Zhan isn't sure what would be worse.

The thing of it is, though, is that Xiao Zhan likes Yibo. He's a baby, sure, but he is funny, and he is a sweet kid, and the way he looks at Xiao Zhan—it's like he wants to eat him alive. Or—not exactly that. More like Yibo has too much want in his heart to know what to do with. Like he's consumed by it, and it all overflows, time and again, until somehow, it's turned into this feedback loop between the two of them that Xiao Zhan is doing his level best to shut down.

He can be friends with Yibo. He can do that, and do it easily. But he knows as well as anybody that these sort of on-set crushes are born out of the intensity of the filming, of being in it together, of feeling like the world has narrowed down to this set and these characters and no one can possibly get it the way they do.

Xiao Zhan's been here before. Maybe not with the same sort of driving intensity he's feeling from Yibo, but he's been here. It will wane. He knows it will. He's not sure Yibo knows that.

Even for Xiao Zhan, it's hard not to get drawn into the pull of all of this. He had not been lying before: Yibo is very, very pretty. And he's made it clear in nearly every way he can that he'd be up for it if Xiao Zhan was. He hasn't said as much—hasn't actually made a pass at Xiao Zhan, but Xiao Zhan is pretty sure that's only because Yibo's maybe not smooth enough to make a pass.

"All done," Yibo says, as he swings the bathroom door open. He's got a towel wrapped around his waist, and he's flushed all the way down his chest from the heat of the shower.

Xiao Zhan swallows. Maybe he's wrong about Yibo not being smooth enough to make a pass.

Xiao Zhan theatrically flings an arm over his eyes and rolls over on the bed. "Wang Yibo, cover yourself up," he orders. "Or I won't be responsible for my actions."

It feels the way it did before, the words coming out before he realizes they're going to. It feels almost—urgent isn't exactly the right word. It feels like he's not quite in control of it—everything he very much does not want to be saying to Yibo comes out without his say-so. Weirder still, he gets an odd surge of relief every time he says the things he doesn't intend to ever say.

At least this time, he manages it with a teasing tone, albeit muffled because he has his face pressed against the bed. He keeps his eyes closed, the image of the cut of Yibo's hips where the towel dipped low burned into his retinas. You are a 91-liner, he tells himself sternly. You are in charge of this situation.

It doesn't feel quite accurate, as he feels the bed dip beside him. He isn't going to look. He isn't, but he does, tilting his head against the bed and cracking open one eye. Yibo is sitting beside him, scrubbing at his hair with a towel. Xiao Zhan's eyes dart down, but Yibo's in basketball shorts now.

Xiao Zhan rolls over onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling. "Sorry I missed the costume change," he says, then has to work hard not to slap his hand over his mouth again. What is his mouth doing?

"Protecting your virgin eyes," Yibo says lightly, and Xiao Zhan can't help but push himself up on his hands, can't help but stare at Yibo.

Yibo's watching him over his shoulder, still rubbing at his wet hair with the towel. Xiao Zhan imagines the moment he missed when he had his face pressed against the bed, of Yibo tugging the towel off, leaving himself bare next to Xiao Zhan for the moments it took him to pull on the basketball shorts.

"Quick change," Xiao Zhan hears himself say. "Are you—" He clamps his mouth shut desperately. Should he press his face against the bed again? Cram a pillow against his mouth, to stop himself from letting the words out? Freeballing is an echo in his chest, like it's aching to come out, and that's weird. That's weird. That's so fucking weird, in more ways than one.

Yibo's dropped the towel and is finger-combing his hair back off of his forehead. It's gotten long—neither of them have time for haircuts, and all of it gets tucked under the wigs anyway. Here, like this, in the soft hotel room light, bare-faced and freshly scrubbed, his hair back off of his forehead in waves, Yibo looks unbearably beautiful, and unbearably young.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says, looking at him uncertainly, turning a bit and bringing one leg up onto the bed. "Are you—"

Xiao Zhan pushes himself off the bed in one swift movement. It's bad enough that the words want to come out on their own, whatever he's thinking about. He knows, with a sinking certainty, that whatever Yibo asks him right now, he's going to be compelled to answer with the truth.

And the truth is not something either of them is remotely ready for right now.

"I have to go," he says, because that is also very much the truth, and gives him the same jolt of what might be called relief as he says it. "I have to go right now. I need a shower. I need to sleep. I need—"

"What about the game?" Yibo protests and Xiao Zhan breathes a sigh of relief at being cut off, because his mouth was completely ready to spit out exactly what it thinks it needs from Yibo. "Don't you want to play?"

"No," Xiao Zhan says, on yet another wave of weird relief. "Not right now," he adds, at Yibo's moue of disappointment. "Another night, I swear—tomorrow," he amends, stumbling as he tries to shove his shoes on and get the hotel room door open at the same time. "We wrap early tomorrow, I'll play your stupid game with you, I promise, I just—I gotta go."

He flees, letting the hotel room door slowly swing closed, blocking out the sound of Yibo calling his name behind him.

"What is going on?" Xiao Zhan mutters to himself, leaning on the counter in the bathroom, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. He'd flung himself into the shower when he'd gotten to his own room, scrubbing himself down under the hot water like he could somehow reset whatever's going on with his mouth by doing so.

He'd braced himself when he was done and flipped the controls to cold, shoving his face under the freezing water and yelping as it sluiced down his body.

It hadn't helped.

He still feels freaked out. Overheated, even in the sluggish chug of the air conditioning of the room. He looks freaked out, his eyes huge and worried. "This isn't great," he tells his reflection.

He stares back at himself in the mirror, offering no answers.

Okay. Okay, he's a fairly intelligent man. He just needs to think. Figure this out. Something happened, and he's going to find out what, because the other option is that nothing happened, and he's just losing his mind.

He doesn't want that second possibility to be true, so: figuring out what happened is his best bet.

"You're too tired," he says to himself in the mirror, and gets that same odd surge of relief his chest he's been getting whenever he says something that's the truth. Hmm. "You got plenty of sleep last night," he says, or tries to, because the words get caught in his throat and he literally can't make himself say them out loud. It's a lie, a blatant one. He's not gotten enough sleep even one night since he got here. He's actually not sure he remembers what being well-rested feels like.

He tries again to say it, but can't make the words come out. He actually feels a little bit sick the harder he tries.

"This is weird," he breathes. "This is so, so weird."

A quiet surge of relief. So that is also the truth. He laughs a little, sounding frenzied even to his own ears, and pushes himself back from the counter, reaching blindly for his toothbrush. It's ridiculous, he thinks, as he brushes his teeth. This can't be happening, it just cannot. There's no such thing as—what? As a truth serum? A truth curse? "Stupid," he mumbles ot himself after he spits and rinses his mouth. "This isn't the show." It's real life, and even in the show, stuff like this doesn't happen. Not exactly like this. Though the one thing with the silencing talisman that Lan Wangji hits Wei Wuxian with would certainly come in handy right about now.

Xiao Zhan shuts off all the lights and stumbles to bed, sliding under the crisp hotel sheets, cool against his overheated skin. He's overtired. He's so tired he's losing it and deciding he's been, what, cursed? Instead of just needing to get a decent night's sleep so he can stop letting his overtired brain let things that are all too true come tumbling out.

He shuts his eyes and presses his face against the pillow. His brain is thrumming, but one positive side effect of the overwhelming exhaustion is that nothing will keep him from sliding inexorably into sleep. He couldn't fight it if he tried. His last, distant thought just before sleep overwhelms him is of the cut of Wang Yibo's hips and the way he'd reached for Xiao Zhan on the bed, his face so open that it was like he was the one who'd been hit with a truth spell.

Morning comes too early, as usual, and Xiao Zhan slaps on a quick cooling mask over his puffy eyes as he stumbles through his morning routine. He zones out as he tugs on his clothes, singing lightly under his breath, the same line from "Shape of You," over and over, the melody of it soothing. He'd slept well, if not long enough, and they've got a shorter day today than usual, if all goes well—Director Chen wants them fresh for tomorrow's shoot, so he's cutting them loose early today.

It lends the feel of the day before a holiday—everyone on set seems to be feeling it, the energy one of nearly giddy excitement, though all it really is is a few extra hours off. Still, they'll all take what they can get. It's not until Xiao Zhan gets to hair and make-up and sees Wang Yibo—made up as Lan Wangji, hair perfect and severe, but still wearing basketball shorts and a zip-up—that everything that happened last night comes crashing back into him.

"Short day today," the make-up tech greets him as he slides into his seat with a small wave at Yibo.

"A treat," he responds to her with a grin, and settles back. Last night was weird, but he's fine today. The good night's sleep had done him well.

"You're coming to my room tonight," Yibo says, pushing himself up from his make-up chair and coming to lean against Xiao Zhan's shoulder, studying him in the mirror and nudging him obnoxiously. "You said."

"I did," Xiao Zhan says in agreement. He's in a good mood. Everyone is in a good mood. "I will."

Yibo beams at him in the mirror, then backs off as the make-up tech shoos him away so she can get at Xiao Zhan. "Zhan-ge looks good this morning," he says.

"Zhan-ge had a good night's sleep last night," Xiao Zhan responds archly, shooing Yibo away with the same gesture the make-up tech had used, to much less effect as Yibo just turns around, leaning his ass back against the table in front of Xiao Zhan so he can watch him.

"Why are you like this?" Xiao Zhan sighs, shaking his head, then making an apologetic face as his make-up tech tsks him.

"Like what?" Yibo shoots back. He's full of restless energy—he keeps poking at the make-up supplies on the table next to him, and he's tapping his toes to the rhythm of whatever song is playing over the speaker on the table. The light in the room is bright and golden this morning and that plus the Lan Wangji make-up makes Yibo look ethereal and other-worldly, even in his zip-up and shorts.

"Beautiful," Xiao Zhan says, carefully shutting his eyes when the make-up tech gestures at him so she can work on his lids. "So beautiful it hurts to look at you." It's such an easy day, he thinks, enjoying the thrum of satisfaction that runs through him. Like a school holiday, or that feeling when you're right on the cusp of going on vacation.

It takes him more than a moment to clock the silence coming from Yibo.

"You can open your eyes now," the tech says, but Xiao Zhan sort of doesn't want to, his heart beating a little unsteadily. It's flooding back, now—that uneasy feeling from last night, where he can't be sure of what will come out of his mouth if he lets it. He hears what he'd just said out loud, and he doesn't want to see Yibo's face.

When he blinks his eyes open, Yibo's looking at him with a tiny furrow between his eyes, like he's trying to figure something out.

"Green tea," Xiao Zhan says before Yibo can say anything. "Can you find some for me? Please? You're done ahead of me and I need the caffeine." That same gentle feeling that comes whenever he says something true rocks through him.

"Sure," Yibo says after a short pause. "I'll—yeah." He pushes off of the make-up desk slowly and gives Xiao Zhan a curious look before walking away. Xiao Zhan knows he's just going to find his PA, get her to get the green tea, but the reprieve of Yibo's eyes on him, of the growing tension of wondering what will come out of Xiao Zhan's mouth next without his being aware of it—it's necessary.

"You okay, laoban?" the make-up tech asks.

Xiao Zhan pushes himself up from his slouch. "Fine," he starts to say, but it gets caught in his throat, wrenching and uncomfortable, and he has to stop and gasp before he can paste a smile on his face, looking at her and shaking his head with what he hopes is a bright smile. "He's getting me tea," he says, lifting his chin towards where Yibo had headed off. It's not a response to the question or the concerned look, but it is the truth, and everything settles down inside him.

So it's not just Yibo he has to tell the truth to. He wonders why he'd even thought that it was. That seems to add another level of insanity to this whole mess. Is he losing his mind? Is the heat and the lack of sleep getting to him? It feels that way. Truth spells aren't a thing. This doesn't happen. So maybe he is just losing his mind which, at this point, almost feels preferable to the alternative.

The day is weird. It's so weird. He can act, and if acting isn't a lie, then what is? But whatever's going on with him seems to have nuance. When he's Wei Wuxian, he's Wei Wuxian, and nothing he says causes any sickening twinges, or gets stuck in his throat. But the moment the director yells, "Cut," it's back, because when Yibo says, "You're being weird," even shaking his head at him makes Xiao Zhan feel a little ill.

"You are, though," Yibo says. He's not even standing that close to Xiao Zhan—he's watching him from a few feet away, his hands braced low on his hips, looking stately in his Lan Wangji robes, even as his face looks impossibly young the second he drops out of character. "Do you feel okay?"

"No," Xiao Zhan says, the honesty feeling pretty good right now.

Yibo's eyes narrow. "Did you eat? Have you eaten anything at all today?"

Xiao Zhan shrugs, which apparently is allowed—he'd had the green tea, which Yibo knows about, and he knows someone had pushed a container of dumplings into his hand at some point that he's pretty sure was today, so he thinks he might be telling the truth.

"You need to eat." This is a well-trod argument and Xiao Zhan's more than willing to put up with Yibo's mother-henning if it avoids the topic of Xiao Zhan's complete inability to edit anything that comes out of his mouth.

"I'll eat, I'll eat," Xiao Zhan says. "The day's almost done."

Yibo's still watching him with his hands on his hips. He looks perfect, even after the long, hot day. He sweats, Xiao Zhan knows he sweats, but somehow he doesn't melt with it the way Xiao Zhan does. He's pure Yibo right now, not a trace of Lan Wangji on his face, looking both concerned and petulant as he stares at Xiao Zhan, like Xiao Zhan not eating is somehow Yibo's personal business. Yibo doesn't get puffy eyes the moment he eats something with salt. The spoils of youth.

"What?" Xiao Zhan asks. He's exhausted. That has to be what's going on. He's completely overtired and assigning reasons to things that are just chalked up to being so wrecked that his brain has stopped working. "Stop looking at me like that."

Yibo's expression turns mischievous. "You don't want me to look at you?" he asks archly. "Zhan-ge is too handsome to look at, I guess?"

"Not like that," Xiao Zhan says tiredly, running one hand over his face. "Not like you want me to do something about it."

There's a zing that goes through him as he says it, and he hears it right away this time, the honesty behind it. Yibo, when he looks at Xiao Zhan like that, looks hungry, hungry in a different way from the way Xiao Zhan is, from not eating most of the day. Hungry like he does want Xiao Zhan to do something about it.

It shuts Yibo up, which makes it...weirder. There are crew all around them, shutting things down, and Yibo looks at Xiao Zhan, opens his mouth, then closes it again. His hands slide off his hips, dangling at his sides, and he looks impossibly young, far too open, his eyes wide and startled. "I—"

"Laoban, wardrobe wants you." It's one of the PAs and Xiao Zhan is mad at himself that he's too tired to remember what her name is. She's herding him along, back to wardrobe to strip out of the heavy layers of robes he's wearing. Taking the costume off is one of the best parts of the day, second only to the moment where the wig is removed and the distant ache of it vanishes. It's so much a part of the day that he no longer notices it until it's suddenly gone.

He turns his head to look back at Yibo and that's another twinge of honesty that hits him just the same way as the words, even though he hasn't said anything at all. Yibo's standing there, the light filtering oddly through the trees so Xiao Zhan can no longer see the expression on his face.

It's been a weird day.

Yibo isn't on the bus back—he has a scene to reshoot and stays on set a bit longer than the rest of them. Xiao Zhan falls asleep on the bus, his temple pressed against the window that trembles as they rumble down the road back to the hotel. He has fitful, uneven dreams, flickering from one to another, and when the bus grinds to a stop at the hotel, he wakes with a jolt, still feeling half caught in the dream state.

"Early night," Yu Bin calls over his shoulder as he passes by Xiao Zhan's seat. "You know what that means!"

"Whose room?" Xiao Zhan calls back, stretching his arms up above himself until his shoulders click.

"You'll find it by the noise!" Yu Bin says as he ambles off the bus.

One of the kid's rooms, most likely, Xiao Zhan thinks as he pushes himself to his feet. He knows, intellectually, that the actors playing the juniors are older than they look, older than the characters they're playing, most of them well over Yibo's age. But they've gotten caught up in the feel of the set, too, and they act younger than they are, particularly on these free evenings.

He shouldn't go to the room party—he should just go to sleep—but these evenings are not to be wasted. He can rally.

A shower actually does reinvigorate him, as does slipping into his softest t-shirt, along with shorts that are maybe the slightest bit too short, but he's so tired of the too-tight costumes. These are his most comfortable clothes and if he's going to rally, comfort is goal number one.

He takes out his contacts and slips on his glasses, looking at himself in the mirror for a minute before pushing his still-damp hair back off his forehead with a sigh. He looks tired. He should just go to sleep. But—he's committed.

The party is in full swing by the time he gets there—Yu Bin was correct that he'd be able to find it by the noise alone. Yelps and whistles and laughter are rumbling out of a room towards the end of the hall, and that would have been sign enough, even without the way the door bangs open, two people spilling out on a wave of laughter, one of them turning back to gesture obscenely at someone else in the room.

It's not until they turn that Xiao Zhan recognizes one of the lighting crew guys, his arm wrapped around another tech's shoulder, both of them laughing as they wander back down the hall together, giving Xiao Zhan a wave as they go by.

It's going to be quite a night, apparently.

Xiao Zhan peeks into the room, and a surge of greeting goes up, everyone waving him in. People are sprawled everywhere, and someone presses a beer into his hand, which he accepts with a grin as he lowers himself to the floor at a clear spot at the foot of one of the beds.

He's turned to the side, trading stories with Liu Haikuan, halfway through his beer and feeling looser, when, someone trips over his legs, even though he's tried to tuck them back. "In the way, Zhan-ge."

Xiao Zhan turns back around as Yibo stands over him, looking down and nudging at his legs with his foot. "It's my fault you don't watch where you're going?" Xiao Zhan says, letting one eyebrow go up and taking a thoughtful sip of beer. He really does feel good right now, a low thrum of happiness slipping through him.

"You're in traffic," Yibo says decisively. "Come on, move over."

Yibo climbs over Xiao Zhan's legs, drops to the floor on the far side of the bed, where there's a clear length along the windows. Xiao Zhan peers over the bed at him consideringly, then pushes himself to his feet. He grabs another beer from the pile on the table before he clambers over the corner of the bed and sits down on the floor next to Yibo.

"Less room back here," he says, frowning as he rearranges his legs, trying to make space for them in the narrow aisle between the bed and the window.

"You didn't get a beer for me?" Yibo says, an exaggerated pout on his face.

"Are you even old enough for drinking?" Xiao Zhan shoots back, twisting open the cap on the second beer and handing it to Yibo. He's almost done with his first, but two is really his usual limit. "We're sharing," he says with a warning look, taking the final swig of the now-warm beer in his hand.

"So generous, Zhan-ge," Yibo says, looking pleased as he takes a sip of the fresh one.

Xiao Zhan twists around to put the empty on the windowsill above them, then turns back to Yibo and holds out his hand expectantly for the beer.

Yibo presses it into his hand. He's slow in pulling away, his fingers brushing Xiao Zhan's. He's not subtle. He does this all the time. Xiao Zhan ignores it, all the time. He takes the beer, tilting his head back as he takes a sip, and ignoring Yibo's eyes on him. "I can feel you watching me," he says, and feels the words like a startled jolt. It makes his palms sweat and the beer bottle slip a little in his hand as he carefully sets it down on the floor in between them, facing the label towards Yibo like an offering.

"I wasn't," Yibo says, not particularly convincingly, his eyes still heavy on Xiao Zhan as he reaches for the bottle.

"You were," Xiao Zhan says, a frisson of what feels like panic going through him. What the fuck is he doing? They don't talk about it. It's a very bad idea to talk about it. "You're doing it now."

It comes out conversationally, not fraught, and that's weird as hell, because these are things he has swallowed down for weeks, for months. He doesn't say it, because his role here is to ignore Yibo's crush, to be the bigger person, until he works through it. This is a bad idea.

"How can I not," Yibos says, after too long a pause, like he's trying to find his way back to their usual teasing cadence, "when Zhan-ge is so—"

He stops, closing his mouth, then opening it again, and then shaking his head, taking a sip of the beer. Xiao Zhan thinks he's blushing, his cheeks going a little pink.

"It's cute," Xiao Zhan says, "how flushed you get." He feels his eyes go wide, and reaches for the beer, fumbling a bit, his fingers lingering on Yibo's even though he doesn't mean to. He doesn't.

Yibo pauses with the rim of the bottle still resting on his lower lip. He's staring at Xiao Zhan, more startled than anything else. The room is thrumming with conversation around them but tucked back here along the edge of the bed, it feels—dangerously—like they're alone. Unobserved. There's an intimacy back here that Xiao Zhan feels like the beating of his heart and this is bad. It's bad, and it's fucked up, and he should never have come to this party. Not with...whatever is going on with his brain, and his mouth, and his heart.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says, his voice a little stunned, and low, like they're telling secrets, tucked back here behind the edge of the bed.

"I should go," Xiao Zhan says, trying to untangle his legs so he can push himself to standing. "Even though I don't want to," he adds, and then makes a strangled sound. He can't stop talking. He needs to stop talking. He gives up trying to get up and falls back, tilting his head back against the wall and scrubbing his hands over his face.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says again.

Xiao Zhan laughs a little behind his hands. Is his name the only thing Yibo can say? He drops his hands, pressing them against the floor.

"Sometimes," Yibo says, sounding hesitant, and Xiao Zhan realizes he's asked the question out loud. Great. Just...great.

He feels Yibo's hand sliding over his own on the floor. It must have been the one holding the beer—it's still cool and slightly damp. There's a raucous burst of laughter from the other side of the bed, loud in Xiao Zhan's ears but still feeling like it's from a long way away.

He's looking at Yibo, his head still resting against the wall. He hadn't meant to do that, either. Looking at Yibo causes problems, more often than not. And—again, more often than not—Xiao Zhan can't stop himself from doing it.

The way Yibo is looking at him is...dangerous. It's so open, so clear, so out there that absolutely anyone can see. Xiao Zhan takes a breath. "Hand me the beer," he says, instead of anything else. The truth feels like it's bubbling up inside him, like sparkling water, like fireworks set off too early, but he can say other things, too.

Yibo picks up the beer from where it's resting on the floor between them. Xiao Zhan reaches out for it, but Yibo brings it to his mouth instead, taking a long swallow, still looking at Xiao Zhan. Xiao Zhan is caught on the way his throat works as he swallows and then, even worse, on the dampness of his lower lip as he pulls the bottle away.

Xiao Zhan swallows, too, a mirror of Yibo. Yibo's eyes do something—a flicker, a tentative decision—and he's leaning in minutely.

They're in the middle of a crowded room party and Yibo is leaning in like Xiao Zhan's going to lick the taste of the beer off of his mouth.

"I'm tired," he says, or plans to, but the words unravel in his throat, sticky and sharp. He feels like he can taste the beer in Yibo's mouth, the sounds of the party fading away around them as they stare at each other, only slightly hidden behind the lip of the bed. "We're not alone," is what he says instead, a truth in too many ways. He presses his lips together tightly and starts to push himself up—getting out of here is the only solution to whatever is going on.

Yibo's hand lands on Xiao Zhan's, pinning it against the floor. That's the only place they're touching, and Yibo is still leaning in only the slightest amount. Xiao Zhan's caught in his gaze and he thinks, somewhat hysterically, that it says something that no one is noticing any difference from their normal behavior, as they're tucked back here together against the wall, staring at each other in what has to be the weirdest way possible.

"I have to go," Xiao Zhan says, and that's a big truth, made clear by the way the tightness of his chest eases up when the words come out. "We can't do this here." That second part was not what he meant to say.

Yibo's eyes go wide again and he starts to push himself to his feet. "Not together," Xiao Zhan hisses desperately, and Yibo pauses, sagging back against the floor again. His hand is still on Xiao Zhan's wrist, resting there like he's forgotten he's holding on.

Xiao Zhan slips his hand away and scrambles to his feet, not gracefully.

"You only just got here," Yu Bin shouts from where he's sprawled on the floor, playing a video game with Wang Zhuocheng. "You said you'd party."

"I'm old," Xiao Zhan says, working to put a grin on his face as he waves at Yu Bin and the rest of the party without stopping his trajectory to the door. "Old and tired. Two beers is a party."

"You gave Yibo your second beer, I saw you," Wang Zhuocheng points out, not looking away from the screen.

Xiao Zhan makes himself roll his eyes exaggeratedly. "Then I'll take one for the road," he says, grabbing one from the sweating pile on the desk and making his escape.

The sounds of the party follow him into the hall, a thumping that Xiao Zhan feels like a counter rhythm to the uneasy beat of his heart. He paces down the hall, the bottle of beer clutched in his hand. He had been overtired. That was the problem he'd chalked it up to earlier. Overtired, overheated, not in the right headspace. It's easy to get pulled into the orbit of someone when they only have eyes for you, but he's twenty-six. He's old enough to know better. He does know better.

He's not even heading towards his room. That's okay. That's probably good. He needs to walk this off. Walking has always helped him think. He can figure this out, or walk until he's too tired to think. He hits the elevator bank and frantically presses the button. It's thankfully empty when it arrives and he gets on, walking to the back and resting his forehead against the wall as it rumbles up. He takes it all the way to the top floor. No one from the cast has a room up here. He'll walk the corridor for a while. Maybe work his way down the stairs floor by floor. Maybe he's not overtired. Maybe he's not tired enough.

He's made it down three levels, and has almost entirely decided that he's got some sort of stress-induced fever that makes him say things he doesn't mean and that he should see if he can talk to the studio physician first thing in the morning when he hears from behind him, "Zhan-ge."

Because of course he does.

"Nope!" he says without turning around, and darts into the stairwell just ahead of him.

He's halfway down a level when he hears the door bang open behind him. "Not now, Yibo," he says, frantically, but his stomach turns over as the words come out, and he grinds to a stop, clutching the railing with one hand and the now-warm beer, still unopened, with the other.

"Wait!" Yibo says, scrambling down the steps behind him.

Xiao Zhan, still not looking back at Yibo, carefully lowers himself to sit on one of the steps.

"Where are you going?" Yibo skids to a stop a few steps above him. He's not even a little bit out of breath after chasing Xiao Zhan. Youths.

Xiao Zhan studies the label on the bottle of beer and then shrugs and twists the top off and takes a sip. It's lukewarm, and it wasn't that good of a beer to begin with. He takes another sip anyway.

Yibo drops down beside him on the step. "You're still being weird," he says, like they're continuing a conversation. "Why'd you leave?"

"Because if I didn't, I was going to kiss you," Xiao Zhan says tiredly. "Or let you kiss me. I'm not sure which." He takes another sip of beer. He's tired. He's so tired. He's so—

He feels Yibo's eyes on him and when he looks over at him, Yibo's staring. Like, staring more than usual. He's tense, nearly vibrating with it, and Xiao Zhan—

"Fuck," he says, dropping his head down and rubbing the back of his neck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." It feels good to swear. The word echoes in the stairwell.

"You were going to—" Yibo falters to a stop, and that right there is weird, too, because in Xiao Zhan's experience, not a whole lot stops Wang Yibo from talking to Xiao Zhan, other than the director calling Action.

"I wasn't," Xiao Zhan starts to say, but his stomach gives a wrench that makes him double over. He hunches over, nearly dropping the beer, and breathes, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Is this whole thing getting worse? He thinks it's getting worse.

Yibo gets up, moving to crouch on the stair in front of Xiao Zhan. He tugs the beer out of his hand, setting it aside. "Are you okay?" he asks, his voice hesitant.

Xiao Zhan lets out a wet sort of laugh. "No," he says, and that is a big, big truth, right there, because it feels so good to say it that he feels like his whole body is shimmering.

"Okay," Yibo says. He scrubs his hands down the sides of the jeans he's wearing, looking nervous. It's kind of cute. He looks like such a kid, even in his jeans that fit him too well, a t-shirt that Xiao Zhan is pretty sure cost more than Xiao Zhan's watch. It fills Xiao Zhan with something that feels like despair to even look at him. He thinks he's right, that this whole thing is getting worse, because he thinks if he looks at Yibo for even another moment, he's going to—he really is going to—

"Okay," Yibo says again, and Xiao Zhan is pathetically grateful for the interruption of whatever it is that's coursing through Xiao Zhan's whole body. "Should we—I don't know, are you—" He presses his hand against Xiao Zhan's forehead.

Xiao Zhan can't help the grin that spreads across his face, and then he's shaking with somewhat hysterical laughter. "It's cute," he says, as Yibo stares at him with increasing concern. "No, no, come on, don't worry, it's just so cute, you're so cute, I can't—"

He doesn't mean to. He isn't going to do this. It's what he's told himself, over and over, that he absolutely is not going to do. He isn't, but he does.

Yibo's hand is still on his forehead when Xiao Zhan closes the distance between them and presses his mouth against Yibo's. It's easy—that's the problem. It's the easiest thing he's ever done, and it's clear to him that this is all tied into whatever is going on with his body, because the surge of absolute relief that goes through them as their lips touch is so overwhelmingly good that he can't help the quiet sound he makes against Yibo's lips.

Yibo's hand slides from his forehead to his cheek as he echoes the sound. He shifts up on his knees, closer to Xiao Zhan, and he's opening his mouth, nudging at Xiao Zhan's lips with his tongue, because of course he is. Xiao Zhan has known this: when it comes to Xiao Zhan, Yibo will always push for more. "We shouldn't," he says, or tries to, but the words never make it out, not enough enough for him to feel the odd jolt of pain that comes whenever he tries to lie, because Yibo's kissing the words out of his mouth, swallowing them down even as he slides his tongue inside.

"We—" Xiao Zhan tries again, but Yibo's hands are on his thighs now, against his skin, digging in like he's holding on, and he's kissing Xiao Zhan so intently that the stair behind Xiao Zhan is digging into his back. Yibo tastes like beer, and smells good, like expensive moisturizer, so at odds with how young he is. Xiao Zhan thinks he should smell like boy, rough and maybe a little dirty. "We should—" He means shouldn't. He knows he means shouldn't, but it won't come out like that. He has to go. He has to get the fuck out of here. This is a bad idea, even if his mouth doesn't agree.

He pushes Yibo away, scrambling backwards as he does.

"Xiao Zhan." Yibo's half-crouched on the stairs in front of him. How are his lips this pink already? They'd only kissed for a few moments. Fuck. He kissed him. He kissed Yibo. Fuck. "Wait."

"I can't." And that is, apparently, the truth, because the words come out without a problem. He spins around on the stairs, pushing himself up and grabbing the railing, taking the steps two at a time, three at a time, racing away.

"Xiao Zhan," he hears again, in the echo of the stairwell, but he lets it get lost in the banging of the door to the next corridor as he races down the hallway.

He's breathless when he gets to his room, too out of breath, fuck, he needs to start doing more cardio. He shuts the door behind him, leaning back against it, staring up at the ceiling. He half-expects—okay, fully expects—Yibo to be knocking on the door behind him in just a second. It's not like he's really escaped this screwed-up situation he's found himself in. He's across the hall from Yibo's room. He has to be back on set to film a scene with him in—he glances at his phone—just about eight hours.

This is why he hasn't done this. It's one reason, out of many. They work together. He has to work with Yibo. Giving in to what has to be some sort of really ill-timed mid...twenties crisis would be a total disaster. He knows this. He knows this.

"I'm in so much trouble," he says out loud, telling his quiet, empty, cluttered hotel room this fact.

It comes out easily, so the universe apparently doesn't disagree.

Xiao Zhan is not ashamed to admit that he's avoiding Yibo. It's actually surprisingly easy to do, even though they're filming together. Yibo is—despite everything: his youth, his increasingly obvious crush on Xiao Zhan, his intensity—the consummate professional. Everything else disappears the moment he becomes Lan Wangji.

And all Xiao Zhan has to do is disappear the second the director yells cut.

He's gotten very good at it.

"Zhan-ge," he hears from behind him, but he skips to one side, lets himself get lost in a crowd of techs, then tucks himself behind a tree and tilts his head back, staring up into the canopy of leaves above him. There's something to be said for filming on location.

"Xiao Zhan." It's Xuan Lu. That's okay. He likes Xuan Lu. He doesn't have that startle of what's starting to feel like terror when she appears, the way he's starting to get around Yibo. "Are you okay?"

"Nope," he says, and he's too tired to try to figure out if he's being honest with her because of the curse or because it feels good to say what he means. He goes to scrub his hands over his eyes, then stops, because make-up, and drops them back to his side. He's tired, even though he had slept last night, after taking a long shower, scrubbing himself down, then turning the water to cold and dousing himself in it until his skin was all goosebumps. His heart had been pounding in his chest, but he'd ignored that, ignored everything except the beating of the freezing water against his skin.

He'd tried scorching it out of himself. He'd figured it couldn't hurt to try the other way.

"Yeah, I sort of didn't think so." Xuan Lu settles beside him, not leaning against the tree because her costume is much more delicate than Xiao Zhan's—she has to move carefully in these forest scenes, to be sure it doesn't snag on anything. "Want to talk about it?"

"Yes but also no." Xiao Zhan should be able to tell what part of this is just him wanting to tell the truth to a friend, and what part of it is a truth curse, shouldn't he? It's funny that he can't tell the difference. Actually funny, not weird-funny, and he finds himself grinning, possibly a little wildly, as he keeps looking up at the sky.

"Hm. Intriguing." Xuan Lu glances over at the set—they're setting up for a whole new scene, so they definitely have more than a few minutes before they're going to be called back. "Want to take a walk?"

"Sure." Why not? It can't hurt. It won't help, but it can't hurt.

She nudges him with her shoulder and they make their way towards the edge of the treeline slowly. "So," she says. "What's going on?"

"I think I'm cursed," Xiao Zhan says before the question is fully out of her mouth. It's what he's decided has to be going on. He's chalked it up to a few things as this has gone along: being too tired, letting himself get pulled into Yibo's sphere, maybe getting some sort of weird virus that makes his stomach turn over at the weirdest possible times, but really. Occam's Razor, when applied, sort of points to only one thing: he's cursed.

"Cursed," Xuan Lu says, then hums a little. "Say more about that."

"A truth curse," Xiao Zhan says promptly.

"Ah." They walk a few more steps in silence. "Given this weird conversation, that seems to track." She tilts her head to grin up at him, but he can't help the anxious look he gives her. She thinks it's a joke. It's not.

"I'm not kidding," he says, and starts to reach to scrub his hands over his eyes again, stopping himself with an, "Augh." He breathes out, then in again. He's hot. He's so hot. He is constantly, consistently, too hot. It's the height of summer, hot and hazy. When he takes off the costume at the end of the day, the underlayer of it sticks to him, soaked with sweat, leaving lines and marks along his skin as he peels out of it. Sometimes the ridges from where the belt has dug in against his waist all day are still there later, back at the hotel. He'll run his fingers along them as he lies in bed, the room dark and cool around him, feeling the rough marks still etched into his belly.

"Talk to me." Xuan Lu says it like an order. They're still walking, and something about it makes it easy for the words to spill out, like so long as they keep moving, and he doesn't have to look at her, he can tell her things.

"It's this thing," he says. "With Yibo."

She's quiet beside him, making almost no noise as she walks.

"It's—I can't explain it, not really, but I can't stop telling the truth, when I talk to him." It sounds absolutely insane as he says it.

"Hm," she says, not sounding as surprised as he'd expected. "And you think that's a...curse?" Her tone is carefully neutral.

"It is," he says, insistently. "Oh, come on, I know what you're thinking."

"He has the biggest crush on you." She's said this to him before, not quite a warning. "Do you think that maybe..."

"What?" Xiao Zhan glances down at her and then away, back to the trees. It's easier to do the trees. "Come on, Xuan Lu. It's just—" See, that's the problem: he doesn't know what it is.

"When you say telling the truth," Xuan Lu asks, as they loop back around, so as to not get too far from set, "what exactly does that mean?"

Xiao Zhan opens his mouth and then closes it again. "It's—" he starts, then can't quite figure out the words to explain.

"Confessing?" She glances up again. He feels it, even as he can't bring himself to look at her.

"No!" he starts to say, but sort of chokes on it. "Or, well. Yes. Sort of. But not like I mean to! It's not like I mean it! These words just come out and—I can't stop them."

"Ah." She walks another few steps, her face thoughtful.

Xiao Zhan doesn't think she's taking this very seriously.

"Look," he says, dropping his head down with a sigh. "I know, okay? I know he has a crush on me. I—look at him, he's—" Wang Yibo. "He's a lot. And I just—I can't—" His mouth won't let him say the rest of it, and he stares down at Xuan Lu, willing her to understand.

"You can't," she repeats back, her tone still neutral. "But now you're telling him things.Things like what?"

"Things like how pretty he is," he bursts out. It feels good coming out. "Things like the fact that I don't know how to not look at him! It's—" Bad, he means to say. The word won't come out. "Can't you hear it? I can't even lie to you. Oh, maybe that's it. Maybe it's not all just about Yibo."

"Right," she says slowly. "Maybe everything isn't about Wang Yibo." She looks up at him. "Not to everyone, at least."

How does she have such big-sister vibes? She skewers him in place with every gentle word. He stops walking, finally, and drops to his haunches, leaning back against a tree and letting his hands hang between his knees. He really wishes he wasn't wearing make-up so he could give into the urge to bury his face in his hands.

Xuan Lu watches him quietly for a moment. "Why do you think it's a curse? We're not in the drama, Zhan-Zhan. Maybe you just like him."

"Of course I like him." The words come out dully, even though there's a bright spark in his belly as he says them. The curse. The curse that Xuan Lu thinks he's making up. "But I never meant to tell him." Those words come out easily, too. Because they're true. "I really didn't. This isn't—look at him."

"I do." She comes a little closer, resting one hand on his shoulder. "It's hard not to. The way he looks at you, it's just—"

"I know," Xiao Zhan says miserably. "That's part of why I was never going to say anything. He's a baby. He's a 97-liner. He makes me crazy."

"That all seemed...pretty easy to say," Xuan Lu responds. "If you're right about the curse..."

She's keeping her tone even, but Xiao Zhan is pretty sure she thinks he's insane.

"If you're right," Xuan Lu repeats, "then what you just said seems to be the truth."

"It is." Xiao Zhan looks down at the forest floor between his feet. "I know it is. When I try to say things that aren't true, mostly they just won't come out. When I try, I feel—" He gestures tiredly. "Sick. Gross. Like I might throw up."

"And just now?" she says gently. "What did it feel like?"

"Oh," he says, the words coming out bitterly. "Fantastic. Like a—" He gestures again, at his body. "Like a golden glow, all warm and good and—"

Xuan Lu is quiet again. He can feel her looking at him. If he looks up and she looks in any way sympathetic, he might just walk into the woods and become a nomad.

"If it is a curse," she says, her voice thoughtful, "then I can't help but wonder where it came from. And why."

He does not want to think about that. He doesn't. He wants—he wants it to be over. He wants to go back to tucking all those words back inside, to working hard to keep the banter between him and Yibo light. "I just want him," he says, and doesn't actually hear himself say it until Xuan Lu's hand tightens on his shoulder.

"Maybe it's things you're supposed to be saying," she says. "Maybe curse is the wrong word for it."

"I—" Xiao Zhan makes himself look up at her, finally, and her expression isn't one of sympathy, or teasing. Her eyes are dark and serious, and for a moment, the feeling wavers, like it's Jiang Yanli he's looking at, the actual big sister in the show, the one who knows more truths than Wei Wuxian ever will.

"Actors on set!" The call rings across the forest.

"Maybe you're right," Xiao Zhan says. He doesn't believe it, but the soft feeling, almost like a bell ringing inside him, tells him she is. It doesn't change anything, though. He can't do this.

"Just think about it." She reaches out a hand and he grins, shaking his head, taking it and acting like he's letting her haul him to his feet. He brushes the back of his robes, and shakes the wig out of his face. Over Xuan Lu's shoulder, way back on set, he catches a glimpse of long white robes, and the sharp profile of Wang Yibo, his head tilted down as he talks to the director.

"Zhan-ge." Yibo's beside him in an instant, the moment Xiao Zhan gets to the forest clearing where the scene will be taking place. He moves swiftly, like he expects Xiao Zhan to dart away from him, which he's been doing all day, so Xiao Zhan guesses that's fair. He doesn't try to get away this time. Yibo wants up in his space? Fine. Fine. Xiao Zhan is fine. There's no curse, just like Xuan Lu said. He's been overtired and too much in his head, and this is just how things go with Yibo. He's fine.

"Wang Yibo," he says, going for overly formal, dropping into a bow so serious that it makes Yibo tentatively grin.

"Where has Xiao Zhan been all day?" Yibo asks, shaking his own wig back over his shoulder. The grin is still on his face, but he's studying Xiao Zhan like he holds the secrets to the universe.

Xiao Zhan thinks of the echoing stairwell last night, the soft press of Yibo's lips against his own and makes himself roll his eyes, glancing away. "Here just like always, Wang Yibo."

"Zhan-ge," Yibo persists and Xiao Zhan thinks, a little bit exhaustedly, that he's never going to hear his name said like that again without thinking of this twenty-year-old boy saying it to him, over and over, throughout a hot, endless summer. "Last night—"

Xiao Zhan gives him a long, level look. On set, really? They're going to talk about this right here—is that what Yibo is thinking? Xiao Zhan is thinking of what Xuan Lu had said, of how not seriously she had taken his declaration of a truth curse. What if she is, in fact, right? What if it's just all the things he's been tamping down, that he's somehow supposed to be saying? This isn't serious. None of this is serious. It can't be. If Yibo wants to push, then maybe Xiao Zhan pushing back will be the equal, opposite reaction that will put this whole thing to rest.

None of this is serious.

"We have work to do right now," he says.

Yibo opens his mouth, then shuts it again. He takes a step back, his eyes on Xiao Zhan, as their make-up crew circle around them, touching them up. The PA calls for places and Xiao Zhan shakes his wig back out of his face again, and watches as Yibo disappears into Lan Wangji.

They work through the scene, take a break, crowd around the camera to watch how they did, get some notes from Director Chen, and go into the scene again. And again.

Yibo slides back into normal, flirting territory, and Xiao Zhan allows it. Lets it play out. Maybe leans into it a little. It feels like a mistake, but everything lately has felt like a mistake. Might as well try something different.

The reshoots of the scene drag on and on. They're trying to get the lighting right now, and it's taking forever.

Yibo is crowding Xiao Zhan. He doesn't look uncertain, the way he did earlier. He looks...Xiao Zhan's not sure what this look on Yibo is. He's got a gleam in his eye that makes Xiao Zhan play back what he'd said to him earlier. He'd given no promises, but Yibo seems to think they're on a level again, and Xiao Zhan is pretty sure that he's giving as much thought to that cut-off kiss in the stairwell last night as Xiao Zhan is.

Xiao Zhan makes the decision to push. He wants to try that, wants to push, the way Yibo has been pushing. He crowds Yibo back, step by step, the whole crew ignoring them as he pushes himself up on his toes so he can loom a bit over Yibo, letting one corner of his mouth tilt up just a little. Is he flirting? This feels like flirting. "Have some respect for your elders," he says, a warning tone in his voice. "We're working. You should be serious."

"I'm always serious," Yibo says, refusing to fall back as Xiao Zhan steps forward, trying to push Yibo out of the clearing. "You're the one who's fooling around. Someone so old and wise as you should know better. You should behave, Zhan-ge."

In the next moment, Yibo snags hold of Xiao Zhan. Xiao Zhan should have been expecting it, and maybe he was, a little, but he wasn't ready for the way the touch feels electric. Yibo wraps his big hand around one of Xiao Zhan's wrists, closes the other one over his other wrist, gripping it in a fist. He's got them crossed over Xiao Zhan's body and Xiao Zhan's defense mechanism has moved from fight or flight to fight or fuck in one hot instant.

Maybe not one instant. Maybe in days, and weeks, of heat, of shooting, of increasing intimacy that has only now spilled over into something that, Xiao Zhan is pretty sure, is out of both of their controls.

Only Yibo looks very in control right now. Very in control, in a way that feels like he shouldn't be, not in public. Not on set. Not here, where absolutely everyone can see it as he watches Xiao Zhan, his eyes hot and, fuck, knowing. It's bad. It's very bad. There's a fire flickering in Xiao Zhan's belly at that look, and he needs to control his own face, needs to hide it somewhere, because it's too telling. It's too real. They're too obvious.

"Hey," he says, not struggling to get away. He feels like if he starts fighting, it will tip over into something more very quickly. "Hey," he says again, and it comes out breathless, as Yibo backs him up against a wall. "Stop, you have to—just stop."

He doesn't get that sick feeling that comes when he's not telling the truth, but it still doesn't come out right. It doesn't come out stern, or laughing, or anything that sounds anything other than what it is, which is—turned on. So turned on he can't breathe quite right. Oh, he's in trouble. He's in so much trouble. He'd been right all along, and Xuan Lu had been wrong. This is very much a curse, and the truth is spilling out far, far beyond his control.

"Places!" rings out again among the trees.

Yibo's hands tighten over Xiao Zhan for half a second before he releases them. His eyes flicker over Xiao Zhan's face, down to his mouth, like he's thinking about—like he's seriously thinking about—

Yibo backs away, smoothing his robes into place, pivoting on one heel and settling into position as a make-up tech scurries up to him again, dabbing at his face, He looks steady, sedate, but there's an angle to his mouth as he stands there next to Xiao Zhan that seems like he's making an effort to hold onto that look. His hands keep messing with his robes for a few moments, restless, like he needs to keep busy. Maybe so he doesn't reach for Xiao Zhan again and—

The make-up tech turns to Xiao Zhan, reaching up to add yet another layer of powder to his skin, her face scrunching up, looking concerned about the shine. He makes a moue of apology, his eyes still drawn to Yibo over her head. Yibo glances over at him and his eyes are still dark, still hot, still—

Director Chen calls for action and Yibo slips into Lan Wangji. It takes Xiao Zhan a moment longer to get into character as Wei Wuxian but from what he understands from the script, staring too long is something that works either way.

They film for hours more, until it's fully dark, until the script and the sweat and the set have become something that is never-ending, a place where they will always live. It doesn't seem real when they wrap for the night. Xiao Zhan is swaying in place, still caught up in the role, in the filming, struggling to shed it.

Yibo brushes by him on the way to the bus back to the hotel and, again, it's electric, just that one touch, brushing Xiao Zhan's shoulder with his own. The low simmer of arousal in Xiao Zhan's stomach picks up again, and he has to take a deep breath, and work to control his face, as he follows Yibo to the bus.

He sits next to Yibo, because he always sits next to Yibo. It would be weirder for him not to sit next to Yibo. He knows that, he's aware of that, he's so aware of that. When he drops into the seat next to Yibo, Yibo immediately moves so his knee is against Xiao Zhan's, a pointy weight against him. It is somehow sending zings of arousal through Xiao Zhan's entire body and he realizes, once again, that he is in trouble. He shouldn't have pushed back. He'd been right to run away last night.

Xiao Zhan tries to pay attention to what's going on on the bus ride home, tries to keep up the conversation with Yu Bin across the way, but it's late and everyone is mostly quiet, and Yibo's knee presses against him the entire time. When he glances at Yibo, Yibo just looks at him, then looks away, and all Xiao Zhan can do is stare into the middle distance and try to breathe, instead of what he really wants to do, which is put his hand on Yibo's thigh.

He wonders what Yibo would do. If Yibo would turn to him, would maybe make a soft noise in the dimness of the bus.

He swallows, and turns his head to look out the window. He keeps his hands to himself.

The bus ride takes what feels like an achingly long time, bouncing on the rough road down the mountain. By the time they get to the hotel, Xiao Zhan's whole body feels like a live wire. "We're here," he says, not looking at Yibo, but he can't stop himself from letting his hand brush against Yibo as he pushes himself to standing.

There's that zing of rightness that he has almost started dreading.

Yibo is close behind him as they make their way in to the hotel, heads ducked down, The security team gets Xiao Zhan and Yibo onto the first elevator and they're whisked to their floor—not alone, a guy from the security team is on there with them, and the silence feels heavy, as they all just stare at the floor numbers ticking by.

The security guy nods at them as they get off together—he stays on, heading back down to the lobby.

The silence of the hallway feels different from that of the elevator. They're alone together, walking down the hall, and Xiao Zhan thinks about giving in to it all again, for one wild moment. About Yibo pressing him against the wall the same way he had back on set, just grabbing his wrists and forcing him back until—

They're outside Xiao Zhan's room. Yibo's room is right across the way. Xiao Zhan looks up at Yibo for the first time since they left set. Yibo's hair is all over the place, messy and damp with sweat. He's looking at Xiao Zhan. It's not the same look he was giving him back in the forest set, that intense sureness as he'd wrapped his huge hands around Xiao Zhan's wrists. His eyes are dark, uncertain.

That's it. That's all it takes, and everything Xiao Zhan has been holding in tight control unravels, slipping through his fingers like a ribbon unrolling. He moves towards Yibo, crowding him against the door. Yibo's hand comes up, holding onto the back of his head and pulling him closer still, and they're kissing. Yibo's mouth is hot against his, frantic, small sounds coming out of his throat as they kiss like this is what they're supposed to have been doing all along.

It's the curse, Xiao Zhan tells himself. It's the curse that's making this feel so good, because there's no way just a kiss can possibly make him feel like this. He remembers from last night in the stairwell, how there was the same sort of feeling like a circuit being closed, and that has to be the curse. It's the same sort of deep thrum like when he says something true, like a bell ringing deep inside.

It's the curse, or at least that's part of it, because he's man enough to admit that another part of this is Yibo's hand on his hip, his fingers digging in, holding Xiao Zhan close. And that another part of it is the way Yibo's kissing him. Hungry, which Xiao Zhan could have predicted, but also intent in a way that makes him think about the look that Yibo had given him back on set, back in the clearing, when he had Xiao Zhan's arms pinned across his chest and was staring at him like he was going to devour him.

He's devouring him now. Kissing him, hot and frantic, and holding onto him with that one hand on his hip, the other hand wrapped around his back, hauling him close. Like he's thinking about last night and determined not to let Xiao Zhan get away again.

"Open the door." Yibo's the one who pulls back, just a little, just enough that Xiao Zhan can see his face, flushed, his lips already pink with kissing. His breath is coming rapidly and Xiao Zhan can feel his chest rising and falling against his own. "Open the door, Zhan-ge."

We can't do this are the words that want to crowd their way out of Xiao Zhan's mouth. He's got a whole bunch of words like that, things he's been telling himself, over and over. This is a bad idea, and We have to work together, and You're so young, too young, you don't know what you're doing.

He doesn't say any of it. He just reaches for the door handle behind him, struggling to get it open.

Yibo's eyes flash and he breaks into a grin, his hand tightening on Xiao Zhan's hip. "You need your key."

Right. "Right," Xiao Zhan says. He feels dazed. He's not doing this. They're not doing this, or shouldn't be, but he is fishing his key out of his pocket, not breaking eye contact with Yibo. He has to break away, turn around, in order to slide it into the lock. Yibo's crowding behind him, both hands on Xiao Zhan's hips now. Xiao Zhan's not sure if it's the curse or something different that sends the feeling like an electric shock through him at the clutch of Yibo's hands, but he fumbles the key, has to rest his forehead against the door for a moment to get a grip and try again.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says again, his breath warm against Xiao Zhan's ear.

There's the ding of the elevator down the corridor, and they both startle at it. Xiao Zhan shoves the key back in the lock, the light turns green, and Yibo pushes him through the doorway, both of them spinning to shut the door behind them. They both lean there for a moment against it, breath coming fast, heads tilted to hear if whoever it was on the elevator is coming closer.

It doesn't seem like it—they hear a murmur of conversation, but it seems to be going in the other direction.

Xiao Zhan turns his head, looking at Yibo. Yibo's watching him, as well. His eyes are dark and Xiao Zhan has seen this look before, has had Yibo's full attention on him like this, again and again. It's always been in the middle of a crowded set, or when the behind the scenes cameras are on them, or at a room party, where Yibo seems to care not at all about who might be watching.

"You look at me like this," Xiao Zhan says slowly, turning around so he's leaning against the door, "all the time."

"Like what?" Yibo turns a little too, his shoulder against the door. He's so close that Xiao Zhan can feel the heat coming off of his body.

Xiao Zhan ignores the question. "You look at me like this and it makes me want to—" He cuts himself off, swallows it down, and his body gives that sharp, sick ache. "It's getting worse," he says, softly, to himself. He doesn't even have to lie anymore, to get that ache. He just has to not say the things that want to come out.

"What is?" Yibo says, intently. He's looking at Xiao Zhan's mouth.

"Whatever this is between us," Xiao Zhan says helplessly.

"Worse how?" Yibo's voice is soft and he's leaning closer to Xiao Zhan, sliding his shoulder across the door until it's right up against Xiao Zhan. He doesn't know about the curse. He doesn't know about anything at all.

Xiao Zhan just shakes his head. They're alone in his room. It feels like the first time. Maybe it is, sort of. Maybe the way all of this has gone down, the two of them conducting this in public, eyes on them all the time, cameras on them all the time—maybe that's been part of this whole thing. Part of what's been drawing them together, keeping them apart. Maybe—

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says, his voice still sounding slow and easy. "Where'd you go?"

His lips are on Xiao Zhan's before he has a chance to answer.

The zing that Xiao Zhan feels now is like nothing he's ever felt before. It's more than when he tells the truth. It's more than it was last night in the stairwell. It feels important, it feels right. They're tilted towards each other against the door, Yibo's mouth capturing his own in a sideways kiss, and even that feels perfect.

Xiao Zhan's been clutching at what feels like the threads of control for so long now that letting them go almost aches. He's turning, then, and pushing himself up against Yibo, pressing him against the door and kissing him the way he's wanted to for days. For weeks. For longer than that, probably.

Yibo makes a soft noise in his throat, and Xiao Zhan, when he'd let himself think about this, maybe thought that if he ever let go and let this happen, that he'd be the one in charge. He's older; he's the one allowing this.

Instead, Yibo surges forward immediately, still kissing Xiao Zhan as he pushes him back, step by step. He's still touching him, seems to not be able to decide exactly where he wants his hands. They're clutching at Xiao Zhan's hips, snaking around his back to haul him closer, then they're up against his face, warm, huge, holding onto him as they kiss.

It's a lot. Xiao Zhan would say it's too much, but that would be a lie. He doesn't want to lie right now. He wants to keep hold of this, this endless series of zings going through him.

They both startle when the back of Xiao Zhan's legs hit the bed. His bed, neatly made by hotel staff, the only neat spot in his endless clutter of a room. He teeters there for a moment before he catches his balance. Yibo's hands are still on his face, his thumb tracing over his cheekbone in a way that makes Xiao Zhan's heart turn over in his chest. "We should—" Yibo says, then hesitates. He's got his eyes open, looking at Xiao Zhan, and his whole heart is in his expression, the way it has been for weeks.

"Yes," Xiao Zhan says, and nothing has felt more right. If it's a curse, then maybe this will help resolve it. He tells himself that's the reason why he hooks his arm around Yibo's neck and draws him down to the bed with him.

"Fuck," Yibo breathes, braced over Xiao Zhan. Yibo doesn't actually swear that often, usually just to get a rise out of Xiao Zhan, but this seems like it's almost forced out of him. "Zhan-ge, I didn't think—I thought you'd never—I thought we'd never—"

Xiao Zhan ignores this. He can't talk about it. He can't discuss it. If they talk about it, he'll think about it, and he doesn't want to think right now. Being horizontal with Wang Yibo is a heady experience. Flirting on set, that's one thing. And there have been moments—probably too many moments—where it has been so clear that Yibo wanted to kiss him, a few moments where Xiao Zhan thought that maybe, possibly, Yibo was actually going to do it, was going to lean in and press his mouth against Xiao Zhan's, in front of the cast and the crew and everybody.

He feels like he's been dancing away from Yibo for months now. Maybe since the first time they met. He'd thought kissing him would be the thing that ruined everything, and maybe it was, maybe it is, but—

He's not thinking about it now. Yibo is up against him on the bed, staring down at him like Xiao Zhan holds all the secrets to the universe. He looks excited, and wide-open, hiding nothing. Wang Yibo doesn't need to open his mouth to tell the truth, Xiao Zhan thinks giddily. It's all right there on his face.

"Come here," he says—an order, maybe. "Kiss me."

Yibo obeys, immediately.

Xiao Zhan lets himself get lost in it. He doesn't have a choice. Not with Yibo against him, kissing him, open-mouthed, desperate. Xiao Zhan groans into Yibo's mouth—he doesn't mean to, it's shocked out of him by the heat of it, the slide of Yibo's tongue into his mouth, the way it feels like they've been doing this forever, or maybe just that they should have been doing this forever.

"It feels so—" Xiao Zhan mumbles against Yibo's mouth, and cuts himself off, which feels...bad, and wrong, and that doesn't fit here, none of that fits here. "Good," he finishes, trying to roll Yibo over, so he can climb on top of him, hold him down, keep him there. "Right," he says, over the zing in his chest. This is bad, he knows this is bad, he shouldn't be saying stuff like this to Yibo, but it's like something's been released, and now that he's started spilling truths, he doesn't know how to stop.

Yibo doesn't let Xiao Zhan roll him over, surging up against him instead with his whole body. He's pinning Xiao Zhan down, and he's hard against Xiao Zhan's hip, and that takes the breath out of Xiao Zhan. He'd never thought he'd want this, never liked the idea of being held down this way, but with Yibo over him, smelling of clean sweat and sex, he wants it. "I want it," he hears himself say, over and over, like it's coming from far away. He's smearing the words against Yibo's mouth, his lips, his jaw, willing Yibo to swallow them down. "I want you, please, Yibo, you've got to—"

"What?" Yibo asks, his voice raw, his breath coming fast, asking the question but giving Xiao Zhan no time to answer before he's kissing him again, and sliding his thigh between Xiao Zhan's legs and shoving his hips forward, like they're fucking already.

Fuck. Is he going to let Wang Yibo fuck him? The hot, overwhelming thought of it sings through him like he's touched a live wire, making his cock harder, his mouth water for it.

Looks like he is.

"You," Xiao Zhan manages, tearing his mouth away from Yibo's with another groan. He feels bruised from this already: his mouth tingling with it, his hips grinding up against Yibo's, his hands hurting from how hard he's clutching Yibo to him. This is why, a voice in the back of his head whispers. It's too much. It's too much.

Xiao Zhan ignores it. It's a truth, as well, and he hates knowing that, hates how it doesn't make him feel ill to think it, because it is too much, it's clearly too much, he feels insane, crazed with it. Two things can be true at the same time: it's too much and he'll do anything Yibo wants, and ask for more.

Fuck the curse. Xiao Zhan has spent too many years making himself ignore what he wants.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says, his voice raw. He's mouthing at Xiao Zhan's jaw, and thrusting against him, and something about the way he's moving makes Xiao Zhan think that Yibo's going to come in his jeans, right here against Xiao Zhan's hip.

He considers that for a moment, then pushes up harder, finally flipping Yibo over, which takes some doing—Yibo is slim, but pure muscle.

"What?" Yibo gasps underneath him. He doesn't have any of that cool boy persona he sometimes puts on, but there is a slightly dorky grin that keeps coming through as he reaches for Xiao Zhan. "What are you—what are we—"

"Quiet," Xiao Zhan says, making it the same tone he's said the word to Yibo, again and again on set. He thinks, again, of being told Wang Yibo is a bit shy. He can be standoffish, don't take it personally. Xiao Zhan, himself, has never met quiet, shy, standoffish Wang Yibo. Yibo has been crowding Xiao Zhan, asking for his attention, since the day they met.

"Come here," Yibo says, sounding desperate, still reaching for Xiao Zhan.

"Behave," Xiao Zhan says and something flickers in Yibo's eyes as he lies there, panting, looking up at Xiao Zhan. Xiao Zhan likes how dark his eyes get, how he stills, immediately. He lets his mouth crook up in a smile, and reaches for Yibo's zipper.

"Yes," Yibo says, instantly, and starts to push himself up, angling for Xiao Zhan's mouth, but Xiao Zhan shakes his head and Yibo sinks back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as Xiao Zhan opens his button, tugs down the zipper, and pulls out Yibo's dick.

Because of course Yibo's not wearing underwear. Xiao Zhan feels both exhausted by Yibo's youth, and thrilled by it.

"Close?" he murmurs, stroking him. He's trying to be cool, but Yibo's cock fits perfectly into his hand, and he's wet already, enough that Xiao Zhan can draw it down from the head, smoothing the glide.

"Huh?" Yibo doesn't seem to have words, his head having fallen back, even as he's still propped up on his elbows. His hips are moving in time to the movement of Xiao Zhan's hand, and his cock throbs in Xiao Zhan's palm.

"You're close," Xiao Zhan says, leaning in closer. "I want you to fuck me." He makes the tone conversational, even as his heart is beating so hard in his ears he can barely hear his own words.

"Won't be able to do that," Yibo grates out, "if you make me come."

"I don't think you'd last long enough to even get inside me," Xiao Zhan says. "Not like this."

Yibo groans, head still tilted back, lifting his hips into the strokes of Xiao Zhan's hand. Xiao Zhan loves the feel of Yibo's cock in his hand, loves the way Yibo's mouth falls open, the sounds he's making, how fast his breath is coming. "I want to make you come," he says, working to keep his tone conversational, like getting Yibo off is easy as anything to him, no big deal. "I want to make you come, right here in my hand. Don't worry," he adds, as Yibo gasps, turning his head to press it against the bed, his eyelashes dark against his cheeks. "I'll get you hard again. I bet you get hard again real fast, don't you? So young," he murmurs.

He's been thinking about that—how young Yibo is, barely twenty-one, thinking about the way Yibo looks at him and how, if they did it, there is no way Yibo would be satisfied with just one orgasm.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo pants out. His eyes are still shut, his hips still moving, and Xiao Zhan can feel it, the pulse of his cock that means he's very, very close.

"I want you to fuck me," Xiao Zhan says again, leaning in closer still. "Come, now, so you can fuck me."

Yibo does, with a too-loud groan, jerking and spilling over Xiao Zhan's wrist. He comes a lot, which Xiao Zhan supposes he should have expected, and the mess he makes of Xiao Zhan's hand, his wrist, Yibo's own stomach, is unexpectedly exciting, making the swirl of desire in Xiao Zhan's stomach go faster, tighter. They're doing this. They are absolutely doing this.

"That was fast." Xiao Zhan turns over, frowning down at his messy hand, then shrugs and wipes it off on his shirt before twisting to tug the shirt off carefully over his head.

Yibo's still lying on his back, panting, but nowhere near as out of breath as Xiao Zhan would be in his place. He's got his eyes open, and a slightly goofy grin on his face, and Xiao Zhan watches as he takes a breath, and then another, and pushes himself up onto his side.

"You got me going," Yibo says, reaching for Xiao Zhan, his eyes immediately dropping to his bare chest, fixating on it. "Let me touch you." He rolls on top of Xiao Zhan, kissing him hungrily again, his hands on his sides, stroking down the skin there, restless, like he wants to touch all of him, everywhere, all at once. "We're doing this," he says, mouthing at Xiao Zhan's jaw. "I can't believe we're doing this."

Xiao Zhan's dick can definitely believe they're doing this. He's incredibly hard, aching with it. Yibo's moving down his body, mouthing over a nipple. Xiao Zhan has always been sensitive there, and his body arches up, telling the truth for him.

"Yeah?" Yibo looks up at him through his eyelashes. "You like that?"

"I do." Xiao Zhan gets that zing of truth, mixed up with arousal, and feels giddy with it, nearly drunk. "Do it again."

Yibo does, then switches to the other one, biting it gently, then harder when Xiao Zhan groans, threading his fingers through Yibo's hair without exactly meaning to.

Yibo lifts his head from Xiao Zhan's nipple, Xiao Zhan's fingers still tangled in his hair. His lips are damp and pink, and Xiao Zhan wants—he just wants— "You're still dressed," he manages.

"I can take care of that," Yibo says quickly, already shrugging out of his shirt and rolling over to kick off his open pants. He rolls back over immediately, capturing Xiao Zhan's mouth in a kiss before moving lower, breathing over his nipples again, before moving lower still.

"How long does it usually take you?" Xiao Zhan asks, as Yibo thumbs open the button on Xiao Zhan's pants. Xiao Zhan wants Yibo's hand on him. He wants his mouth on him. He wants Yibo inside him. He wants everything.

"Hm?" Yibo glances up at him, even as he's working Xiao Zhan's pants and underwear down his thighs.

"To get hard again." Xiao Zhan kicks his pants off his feet, not caring how ridiculous or ungainly he looks doing it. His dick is very close to Yibo's mouth and he thinks for a moment of letting Yibo suck him off, swallow him down. He could do it, he has a big mouth, and Xiao Zhan gets lost for a moment wondering about his gag reflex. Yibo seems very focused, very intent on being the best he is at whatever he does. Xiao Zhan would bet money that he excels at sucking cock.

"Usually a little longer than this," Yibo says, looking down at where he very much is starting to get hard again, halfway there already. He looks back up at Xiao Zhan with a grin. "All for you, Zhan-ge."

Xiao Zhan lets his head fall back, grinning up at the ceiling. "You're barely twenty-one," he says. "You'd get hard again for anyone." His heart is beating wildly, and he can't believe they're doing this. He pushes down that thought quickly. They're doing this and right now, tonight, that is all that he wants to think about.

"Not this fast." Yibo breathes the words out against Xiao Zhan's skin, tracing over his hip with his tongue. "You really want me to fuck you?" He sounds excited, and when Xiao Zhan looks down at him, his eyes are fixed on Xiao Zhan's face. He looks impossibly young, a scatter of acne along the line of his jaw, his whole heart echoing clearly in his expression.

"I do," Xiao Zhan says, the hot spread of truth that rolls through him so overwhelming it's nearly an ache.

"Then that's what you'll get," Yibo says. The way he grins at Xiao Zhan is familiar, from weeks of it on set, that wide, open smile, the one that says, I know you and I like you and, as Xiao Zhan has more recently realized, I want you.

Xiao Zhan thought, when he allowed himself to think about it, that Yibo might be shy about this part. He's not sure why—maybe how young he is, maybe how he's incredibly jaded about some things, mostly in the industry, and incredibly inexperienced at others. He's been raised in a bubble of being an idol, and even though Xiao Zhan's own experience has more than shown that young men in the industry find...things to do with other young men, Yibo has always seemed sort of shy around others. Maybe a little bit reserved. Around mostly everyone, except for Xiao Zhan.

Which is why Xiao Zhan maybe hadn't expected Yibo to be so collected as he expertly fingers him open. He's using too much lube, Xiao Zhan's thighs slick with it, but— "You're good at this," Xiao Zhan says, then gasps as Yibo works his fingers in further with a twist. He realized he's got his hands fisted in the sheets, like he needs something to hang onto. The way this is going, maybe he does.

"Yeah?" Yibo says. It's a question, but he still sounds smug. "You think so?"

"You know you are," Xiao Zhan pants out, then twists over onto his back, gasping as Yibo pulls his fingers out. "Condom." He nods over at the bedside table, where he does have condoms, for reasons he's chosen to not look at too closely. Yibo's fully hard, really hard, and it's going to feel so much better than just his fingers. Xiao Zhan watches as Yibo fits one on over his—truly impressive, Xiao Zhan will absolutely give him that—cock.

"Like this?" Yibo is scrambling back over, between Xiao Zhan's thighs almost immediately.

"Like this," Xiao Zhan says, and Yibo's face lights up, as he pushes Xiao Zhan's legs back.

"You're bendy," Yibo says, breathing hard and reaching down to line up his cock.

Xiao Zhan pants out a laugh up at the ceiling. "I'm pretty spry for my age."

"You—" Yibo drops his head down, and the sound he makes as he pushes inside Xiao Zhan is one Xiao Zhan is going to remember for a long time. It's like it's wrenched out of him, as he sinks inside, and Xiao Zhan likes it, so much. Too much. He wants Yibo to come undone inside of him.

"Fuck," Yibo says, moving his hips slowly, like he can't bear to actually pull back enough to thrust. "You're—Zhan-ge, you're so—" He gasps, as he shifts forward and goes in deeper. Fuck, he's big. Xiao Zhan feels like he's being stretched open, loves the feeling of it, the pull of it. "Hot," Yibo finishes. "So hot inside, I knew you'd be, I thought you'd be, hotter than, oh—" He pumps his hips, and there it is, the rhythm of it catching both of them, as Xiao Zhan rolls his hips up and Yibo thrusts in. "Oh, fuck, this is—"

Xiao Zhan should have expected this, that Yibo would lose any filter he'd ever had when he's fucking. He likes this too much, too. He likes everything about this too much. He pushes himself up a little, angling to reach Yibo's mouth. He wants to swallow his words, keep them safe, private, something just for the two of them. He can feel the groans reverberating in Yibo's chest as he moves faster, harder, exactly right, exactly what Xiao Zhan wants, exactly how he loves it.

"So good," he murmurs against Yibo's mouth his hands running down Yibo's back, feeling the working of his muscles as he fucks Xiao Zhan. "So good, you're so good, you're so good at this."

Yibo pulls his mouth away, pressing his face against Xiao Zhan's shoulder, snapping his hips forward. Xiao Zhan could take this for a long time. He thinks that if they had more time, if they had everything he wishes they could, that he'd make Yibo wait, make him hold back. He bets Yibo would do it, if Xiao Zhan told him too. Make Yibo pull out so that Xiao Zhan could get on top of him, could ride him, control the pace of it, the speed of it, keep Yibo teetering on the edge of orgasm until he'd be begging for it.

"Harder," Xiao Zhan says now, his voice breaking on the word, because they don't have more time. They don't have everything he wishes they could have. "I need to—Yibo, please, you have to—"

"Yeah." Yibo's finally, truly breathless, sweating with the effort he's putting into fucking Xiao Zhan. He snaps his hips forward again, and again, and Xiao Zhan knows he's close, can feel how close he is, and yet Yibo doesn't lose the rhythm, doesn't just rut against Xiao Zhan. He fucks him like it's his job, and Xiao Zhan's heart isn't going to recover from this, is it? "Yeah, I'm—Zhan-ge." He grates Xiao Zhan's name out, sounding desperate. "I'm going to—I'm so close, I can't—"

"Come on," Xiao Zhan says, tightening his thighs. He's close, too, his cock leaking a puddle in between them. He needs to come so badly, he thinks he could if something just brushed against him right, but he wants to experience every moment of Yibo losing himself inside Xiao Zhan. "Come on, you can—you have to—"

Yibo comes, one final thrust into Xiao Zhan, shuddering against him, his face buried in the crook of Xiao Zhan's shoulder. His breath is coming hot and fast against Xiao Zhan's skin and Xiao Zhan thinks he could maybe come like this, too, with Yibo slowly going soft inside him, with Yibo's mouth against his skin.

He doesn't have to, though, because Yibo's moving, fumbling in between them, reaching for Xiao Zhan's cock. Xiao Zhan had almost expected Yibo to maybe do the thing where he falls immediately asleep after coming, but Yibo's hand is on his cock unerringly, even as he shifts, slipping out of Xiao Zhan. "You get so wet," he says, looking down, watching as his hand moves over Xiao Zhan. "Look at you, you're dripping, it's so hot." He looks back up at Xiao Zhan, his face excited, like he's as caught up in this as Xiao Zhan, like he's the one teetering on the edge of orgasm.

Xiao Zhan can't take the intensity of his stare, can't watch Yibo while he comes. He lets his head fall back, lifting his hips into Yibo's strokes. Yibo's hand is huge and hot and he's not wrong, Xiao Zhan is slick with precome, absolutely is, in fact, dripping with it, and he likes how into that Yibo is. It doesn't take much longer, just a handful of strokes, and then Xiao Zhan is coming, the orgasm hitting him so hard he can't feel his hands. He comes for what he thinks is a long time—he's been holding back, waiting for so long, before tipping over that he feels like he can't stop coming.

He's panting when he's finished, absolutely soaked with sweat and come. He likes it. He likes every part of this a little too much. He wishes he and Yibo had been more foolish, hadn't been careful, so he could feel Yibo's come, too, dripping out of him.

"That was—" Yibo says, and stops. He sounds a little stunned, and he's staring at Xiao Zhan. He looks serious but also there's a grin that keeps fighting to get out, like he's honestly not aware of it. "Zhan-ge, that was—" He looks down at his hand, which is covered with Xiao Zhan's spunk. "I thought I came a lot, but you—that was so hot. It was so much. It was—" He's talking fast, and Xiao Zhan, lying there with his chest still heaving, doesn't know where he gets the energy.

"I want to do it again," Yibo says, like he's telling a secret, even as he's wiping his hand down Xiao Zhan's hip absent-mindedly.

"Hey!" Xiao Zhan wrinkles his nose, batting at Yibo's hand. "Gross."

Yibo blinks down at him, and then grins wider, right before he rolls on top of him, making a much, much bigger mess. "What?" he says, looking down at Xiao Zhan. "It's your come. There's nothing gross about that." He's squirming against Xiao Zhan, and everything is sticky and the whole room smells like sex, like them. This was a mistake, it obviously was a mistake, but Xiao Zhan tilts his head towards Yibo until Yibo captures his mouth in a kiss. If it's a mistake, well, then, Xiao Zhan's going to make it count.

"Take a shower with me," he says when they break off. He feels reckless, and stupid, and doesn't care. It's one night. He gets to have this one night. He can give that to himself, and to Yibo. "We're incredibly sticky."

"I'm just going to get you messy again," Yibo says, in his most reasonable tone, but he rolls out of bed, tugging Xiao Zhan after him.

They make out in the hazy heat of the shower, the water a curtain around them. Yibo kisses with his whole body, which is something Xiao Zhan should have expected. He moves against Xiao Zhan as he slides his tongue into his mouth, his hands encompassing Xiao Zhan's hips, slick against him as the water falls over them.

Yibo, a towel around his waist, starts to hunt for his clothes when they get out.

"Stay," Xiao Zhan says, softly. A ringing of a bell through his belly as he says it.

Yibo stops, his shirt clutched in his hand, looking at Xiao Zhan, surprise writ large across his face. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, before he says, "Okay," and lets the shirt drop immediately.

It's late. Xiao Zhan doesn't know how long they fucked for; it had felt like hours, though he knows that's impossible, but the surreal feeling of the night makes it difficult to tell. His body aches in that specific way that goes along with good sex and he doesn't think he can get hard again, not yet, but he still feels that lazy swirl of arousal going through him that, were he to be honest with himself, is something he's very much come to recognize when it comes to Wang Yibo.

They push back the messy covers and climb into bed together. Xiao Zhan shuts the light off; it feels better that way, right, like they're still caught up together in a cocoon, and nothing else matters. They're facing each other, and as Xiao Zhan's eyes adjust, he can see Yibo watching him in the light of the parking lot edging in around the curtains. "Tired?" Xiao Zhan asks.

Yibo shakes his head no, but he yawns in the next moment, and Xiao Zhan can't stop the grin that takes over his face, going wider still when Yibo grins back and says, "Okay, maybe a little. Alarm?"

Xiao Zhan had dug his phone out of his discarded pants, plugged it in while Yibo was brushing his teeth. He nods. He'd set it for early, really early, early enough to get Yibo up and out, over to his own room before there's likely to be anyone else awake. He doesn't want to think about that right now. It may be late, but he has Yibo here in his bed with him and the chime in his heart tells him this is right. "Come here," he says softly.

Yibo shifts forward, sliding his arm over Xiao Zhan's waist and tugging him close. They don't kiss—Xiao Zhan thinks if he kissed Yibo right now, they'd slide into making out again, and he wants...something different than that, right now. He wants this closeness.

He shifts around, turning over in Yibo's arms, pressing himself back against him. It's been a minute since he's been the little spoon, but Yibo tucks him closer immediately, pulling Xiao Zhan in against him and pushing his knees up behind Xiao Zhan's. They're both naked, and the clean smell of Yibo, and the way his soft dick presses against Xiao Zhan's ass, feels tender, feels right.

Xiao Zhan closes his eyes. He's heavy with sleepiness, his entire body wanting to be tugged down into it. He wants to fight it, so he can get more of this, but he also wants this—just this, just being held like this, the way Yibo's hand rests over his stomach like Xiao Zhan is something precious that he needs to hold onto.

He slides into sleep like that, Yibo's nose pressed behind his ear, the soft puffs of air as Yibo breathes. He thinks, maybe, just as he falls asleep, that Yibo says, softly, "Zhan-ge," but it's too late, sleep has taken him.

There isn't enough tea in the world to get Xiao Zhan as awake as he needs to be, but he keeps drinking it grimly. Too much caffeine doesn't offset too little sleep—he'd learned that in his X-Nine days, but it's better than nothing.

He'd fallen asleep in the chair as he was getting his wig put in place, woken only when the stylist had said his name apologetically, with a barely-there pat to his shoulder. "Sorry," he'd said, waking immediately. "Sorry, oof, I'm here, I'm here."

He looks at himself in the mirror. He looks fine. He looks normal. A little bleary-eyed, but other than that.

He'd woken before the alarm had gone off that morning, the room still very dark, Yibo's hard cock pressed against Xiao Zhan's ass. They'd shifted apart during the night, but now Yibo was up against him, his hips moving slightly. Xiao Zhan, still half-asleep, had moaned against the sheets. "Oh good," Yibo had breathed, his hand moving down to circle around Xiao Zhan's cock. "You're up."

"We both are," Xiao Zhan had said, pushing back against Yibo, and grinning at Yibo's soft huff of laughter.

They'd fucked again, like that, the room dark around them, half-asleep, but no less intense for it. It felt other-worldly, wild, like it was something new that only they had discovered. Xiao Zhan had had to press his mouth against the pillow as he came, trying to bury the noise that wanted to come out.

He'd hustled Yibo out not that long after—they were cutting it close, the hotel would start to awaken in not too long. Yibo's shirt was askew, his hair...very much sex hair, a predictably good look on him. He'd pressed Xiao Zhan against the door even as Xiao Zhan was reaching for the doorknob, kissing him again, soft and sweet. "Zhan-ge," he'd said, and there had been a question in his voice, like they were going to have a conversation about this.

"Go," Xiao Zhan had said, tugging away, and pulling the door open. He'd risked a quick glance down the hall. Clear. "Go, now."

He remembers, now, as he looks at himself in the mirror, how Yibo had paused with his hand hooked around the edge of the door, looking at Xiao Zhan. "Are we—"

The ding of the elevator had been startlingly loud down the hallway and they both moved, Yibo disappearing into his room as Xiao Zhan shut his own door, easing it closed as quickly as possible without making a sound.

He nods his thanks as the stylist finishes fussing with his wig and makes his way to find more tea before make-up needs to capture him. His eyes feel raw, the few hours of sleep nowhere near enough. He'd thought he'd adjusted to late nights and no sleep during this filming but that was without...doing what he had done last night. What they had done.

He tamps down that thought, ignoring the sick feeling that sloshes through the tea in his stomach. He's fine. They're fine. He's watched enough dramas, read enough books. He'd given in to it, he'd let it happen. Surely that has to be enough to assuage whatever it is that's been happening to him.

He's fine.

He's slipping out of hair and make-up just as Yibo is coming in.

"Hey!" Yibo turns in the doorway, reaching to catch Xiao Zhan's arm, but Xiao Zhan's too fast, taking another gulp of tea and giving Yibo a closed-mouth smile as he leaves.

He makes it through the day like that—they're filming separately today, and Xiao Zhan has a bunch of behind-the-scenes interviews to do, and if he does a little extra work to be sure they're on other sides of set, well, he's doing what he has to do to keep his own sanity.

It works, too. Mostly. He has a low-level headache all day that painkillers do nothing to touch. His scenes go fine, and he's mostly thankful that he has nothing too complicated on the docket. It's Yibo who has the hard work today—they have him trussed up on wires, Xiao Zhan knows, from the talk around set. Usually, Xiao Zhan would be there watching. Today, he makes his way to the green room and finds a chair where he can sit and shut his eyes, slumping back against the uncomfortable back of the chair and willing the headache to go away.

The headache stays, and his stomach stays tight and uneasy, too, but he makes it through the day without another glimpse of Yibo. He knows this isn't a great plan, he knows it's not how he's going to fix things, but he can't fix things, not right now, not today, not when his body is still aching from last night, the sort of ache that feels like he only wants it again.

He wonders how long it will take for the ache to go away.

He flees set early, the moment he's done for the day. The bus back to the hotel is half-empty and people seem to feel the negative energy radiating off of Xiao Zhan, because no one tries to talk to him. He presses his temple against the cool glass of the bus window and shuts his eyes, thinking of nothing.

He showers when he gets back, turning the water up as hot as it can go. He thinks about looking for dinner, but the thought feels overwhelming. It's still light out, barely dusk, but he pulls back the covers on the bed anyway. He's tired. He's so tired.

The sheets haven't been changed, because that only happens a couple of times a week. The bed—rumpled, barely made, he'd only tugged the covers up haphazardly this morning—looks sex-mussed, and he stares at it for a second, wondering if it still smells like Yibo.

"Fuck," he says tiredly, the word feeling good in in mouth. He scrubs the heels of his hands against his aching eyes, pressing hard enough that he sees stars and lets himself get lost in the bright whorls of them, like somehow the answers he's looking for will be there.

He startles when there is a series of sharp knocks at the door, even though he absolutely should have expected it. Maybe did expect it, from the way his whole body goes focused, his headache receding for the first time all day.

"Xiao Zhan." His name is loud, sharp, from outside the door, and hearing Yibo use his full name is incredibly strange, so wrong that Xiao Zhan is at the door in just a handful of steps, swinging it open.

Yibo's outside, glaring at him for a moment before shouldering his way into the room. "What the fuck, Zhan-ge?"

It's a relief, hearing Yibo call him that, even in a flat, angry tone. He's clearly come directly from set—his hair is still damp with sweat, sticking up in places, and he has traces of make-up along his jawline. He's still luminous, so beautiful Xiao Zhan can't take it. Xiao Zhan ignores how whatever is going on with him means he doesn't even need to say this stuff out loud for the feeling to roll through him, that feeling of rightness.

"You can't be here." He makes himself say it, and the headache comes back full-force.

Yibo scowls at him and it makes him look painfully young. "You didn't have a problem with it last night."

"Last night was a mistake." Xiao Zhan swallows against the surge of bile that rises in his throat. Is he going to be sick? He should have maybe eaten something.

Yibo's staring at him like he's out of his mind. "It wasn't," he says flatly.

"It was." The headache is a sickly pounding in Xiao Zhan's temples and he has to close his eyes for a moment, against the dull light of the room, against that look in Yibo's eyes. "We shouldn't have done it."

"You're so sure about that, huh?" Yibo's still glaring at him when Xiao Zhan blinks his eyes back open. Yibo's jaw is set, his chin up a little, and Xiao Zhan wants to kiss him.

He tamps that thought down. "I am," he says, and chokes on the words.

Yibo shakes his head at him. "You can't even say it," he says tightly. "You don't believe that. And if you do believe that, you're wrong. No, shut up," he says, when Xiao Zhan opens his mouth. "You're wrong."

"You don't know," Xiao Zhan says, making the words come out. "You're too young." He can barely hear himself speak over the pounding in his head. The words come out sounding not quite right, like he's speaking a foreign language, saying them only phonetically without knowing the meaning.

"Too young." Yibo turns his head aside, a tight smile on his face, like the one he uses for reporters. "Fuck you, Zhan-ge." It's not even that angry, the way he says it. He sounds tired more than anything. "I'm not."

"It's a bad idea," Xiao Zhan tries, because surely that's a big truth arching over anything else. His body doesn't agree, and he sits down heavily on the end of the bed, pressing his arm against his stomach.

"Are you really so—" Yibo cuts himself off, taking a step forward, closer to Xiao Zhan.

Xiao Zhan can't bring himself to look up at him.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo says, a new tone to his voice, like he's trying for reasonable. "The way you kissed me—"

Xiao Zhan shakes his head, pressing his arm against his stomach more tightly. "That was—"

"It was good, Zhan-ge, it was so good." Yibo's talking rapidly and Xiao Zhan can't feel anything but pathetic relief that Yibo had cut him off before he had had to force the words out. "You know it was. I know you know it was. You were—I was there, Zhan-ge. I saw you. I felt you."

Xiao Zhan is flooded with memories of last night, Yibo over him, driving into him, the ache of it feeling just right, slotted together like they were meant to be.

"Look at me." Yibo sounds gentle, and Xiao Zhan can't take gentle, not right now. He can't. He can't look at Yibo. If he looks at Yibo, he'll see it all: Yibo's eyes on him, too intent, the way they have been all summer, like there's nothing worth looking at other than Xiao Zhan.

"Fuck." Yibo breathes it out, sounding exhausted, and thumps to his knees softly, right in front of Xiao Zhan.

Xiao Zhan looks at him. He doesn't mean to. He means to do the opposite, to look away, to not pay any attention to Yibo, until he gets it, until he understands that this can't happen. If Xiao Zhan has to be the one to get that point across, even if his body wants him to be sick about it, he's going to. "It can't—" he starts, and swallows against the pain that rolls through him. "We can't—" His tongue feels too big for his mouth, and his head is pounding again, so hard he can't see straight. He scrubs the back of his wrist across his eyes, willing the pain to subside.

"Stop it." Yibo tugs Xiao Zhan's hands off his face. He holds them loosely in his own, his fingers circling Xiao Zhan's wrists and Xiao Zhan looks down at their hands, Yibo's so much bigger than his own, holding onto him. "Listen."

Xiao Zhan looks at him. He can't help it. He's managed to ignore him, time and again on set, trying to keep this at bay, trying so hard not to lean into this. To set the boundary. To show Yibo that they're not anything more than they are, that this isn't anything more. Colleagues. Co-stars. Not even friends, probably.

"Listen," Yibo says again, the same tone. Quiet. Not even urgent.

"Listening," Xiao Zhan says softly, and a respite from the pounding behind his eyes goes along with the word.

"I'm younger than you," Yibo says, a reasonable tone in his voice. "I'm younger than you, yeah, but I've been in the industry for a long time. A lot longer than you, Zhan-ge." He gives Xiao Zhan the ghost of a grin. "I don't do stuff like this. I don't—feel like this. Not about people I work with. Not about anybody. Not for a long time."

"What's a long time, when you're only twenty-one?" It's an honest question and his body allows it, no rolling pain this time, just something that feels almost like it's thrumming, waiting for the answer.

Yibo pauses before he responds. "A long time," he says. "You don't need to be careful with me. I'm not an idiot. I think you know that." He studies Xiao Zhan's face. "What's going on with you?" he asks finally. "You're—this is something more than that. Something more than us. Tell me what's going on."

There is no us, Xiao Zhan thinks about saying, but he's too worn out, too tired of feeling like this. "I don't know," he says, and that's a half-truth, maybe, because he gets a warning throb in his temple. "I don't know, exactly," he amends. "Something. Something weird. I don't understand it, and I don't know where it's coming from. Xuan Lu thinks I'm crazy."

"Xuan Lu knows?" Yibo's eyes sharpen, and he shifts a little, like he's about to go find her.

"Sort of." It's like something has unstoppered inside him, like now that he's started talking, started telling the truth, he can't stop. "She knows some of it. I think it's a curse," he admits, suddenly, and it feels good to say it, to say it directly to Yibo, even though saying the words out loud does, in fact, sound crazy. Maybe he is crazy. He certainly feels crazy.

"A curse," Yibo says. He's sitting back on his heels, his hands still looped around Xiao Zhan's wrists. He looks curious, and the way he's studying Xiao Zhan's face, like he's intent on understanding, is familiar. It's that same sort of look he gives to Xiao Zhan on set, like he's just waiting for Xiao Zhan to see him, to give him that same intensity back.

"I think so," Xiao Zhan says. "I don't know. I know what it sounds like. But it started a little while ago, and it's not stopping. It's getting worse, actually." He's babbling, and somehow that feels good, too. He's always so careful with his words. This feels like a relief. "It's a truth curse." That feels overly-honest to say to Yibo. Like saying that, admitting even that much, will make the whole thing unravel. His heart is pounding in his throat, not the same sort of sick feeling he gets when he says something untrue. A different sort of feeling, like he's teetering on the edge of something and about to go right over.

Yibo's eyes flicker and he leans closer, his hands tightening slightly against Xiao Zhan's wrists. "Tell me," he says.

Xiao Zhan is breathing so hard he feels like he might be hyperventilating, but the words spill out anyway. "It's incredibly weird, and I know that, but I started saying things I didn't mean to say. Not out loud," he clarifies. "Things that I would only say in my head, but suddenly they were coming out, and I'd only realize it after."

"Things you wanted to say," Yibo repeats.

"No," Xiao Zhan says, then swallows against a wave of pain. "Yes," he says then, and the sharp relief of it makes him sag forward.

"Was that it?" Yibo's studying Xiao Zhan's face. "That was part of it, just now, wasn't it?"

Xiao Zhan nods miserably. "Yeah," he admits. "It got weirder. Worse. Not just saying things I didn't mean to say, but also—" He shouldn't be telling Yibo this. Yibo is the last person he should be telling this to. "Also, when I say things that aren't...so much true, then I feel sick. Like. It's a physical thing."

"Your head," Yibo says, still studying Xiao Zhan. "I can see it. You get that look, like when you wear your contacts too long."

Xiao Zhan gives a watery sort of laugh, because of course Yibo knows that about him. "Yeah," he says. "My head, and my stomach, and just a general overall badness."

Yibo is silent for a long moment, and Xiao Zhan stays quiet, too. He's said too much. He knows he's said too much. "And when you tell the truth," Yibo says.

Xiao Zhan just looks at him.

"What does it feel like," Yibo continues. "when you tell the truth?"

Xiao Zhan opens his mouth, and shuts it again. He can't lie anymore. Not to himself, not to Yibo.

"Last night." Yibo shifts forward, incrementally closer, already so close that Xiao Zhan can see his individual eyelashes, the glints of gold in his eyes. "Were you telling the truth last night?"

Xiao Zhan's breath has slowed down, maybe because it's caught somewhere high in his chest. He looks at Yibo's eyes, then down at their hands. He tugs a little, slipping his wrists from Yibo's hold, only so he can slide his palms down, slowly, clasping Yibo's hands in his own. "Yes."

A bright, rolling burst of something inside him, like a pure moment of total cessation of all the tiny aches and pains that a person lives with every day, every part of them disappearing, burned away from the inside out.

Yibo is very still in front of him, very quiet. "How did it feel, last night?" he asks, finally.

Xiao Zhan's eyes flicker up to Yibo's. "You know the answer to that," he says. "You saw me."

"I did." Yibo nods slowly. "I want to hear it from you."

Xiao Zhan's mouth wants to tug into a grin. "I should never have told you about the curse," he says, half-laughing. "You're going to make me tell the truth all the time."

"I'm sure gonna try," Yibo says with a shrug. "Tell me."

Xiao Zhan isn't sure he can. "It felt...easy." A ping, zipping through him, bright and golden. "It felt right. It felt—" It had felt like a culmination, like everything that had happened this whole long, hot summer had been leading to it. He can't make the words come, not because he's tamping them down—he's not sure he can, not anymore—but because it's too much, it's crowded inside his throat, and there's not enough air in the room to hold everything last night had felt like.

He's staring at Yibo, their hands still clasped, and he lets himself think about it, think about the way Yibo had kissed him, with his whole body. The way Yibo had felt in his hand as Xiao Zhan had stroked him off, the way Yibo's face had looked when Xiao Zhan had done it, luminous and also almost tortured, like he needed it so badly that he'd give Xiao Zhan anything to keep going. The way it had felt when Yibo had slid inside him, lighting Xiao Zhan up from the inside out.

"Zhan-ge," Yibo breathes, his eyes wide, and leans in that incremental distance, tilting his head and kissing Xiao Zhan.

There's that same feeling Xiao Zhan can't stop thinking about, like a circuit being closed, like a key fitting into a lock. He makes a soft sound and opens his mouth a little. Yibo tugs his hands away, so he can anchor them on Xiao Zhan's hips, pushing his knees open so he can crowd in between them. He kisses Xiao Zhan harder, deeper, and Xiao Zhan feels it everywhere. His toes tingle with it, his heart beats in the rhythm of it. He pushes closer, as though they're not already as close as they can get, like he can meld them together, if he only tries hard enough.

"And now?" Yibo says, pulling his mouth away only enough that he can speak, half-pressing the words against Xiao Zhan's mouth. "How does it feel now?"

"You know how it feels." Xiao Zhan's aching for another kiss, for endlessly more kisses.

"Tell me," Yibo says, kissing the side of his mouth, tongue darting out for a moment like he needs to taste it. "I want you to tell me."

"It feels like you're the one," Xiao Zhan says, the words spilling out, reckless and bold.

"The one?" Yibo pulls back, enough that Xiao Zhan can see him, his eyes dark and curious, his mouth still open a little.

"For me," Xiao Zhan says, and something cracks open inside him, a visceral feeling, so strong and overwhelming that he wonders if it's made an audible sound. He looks at Yibo, and feels...he doesn't know. He doesn't know. If Yibo asked him, again, right now, he wouldn't be able to tell him. He'd thought he'd feel scared, almost, or full of dread, and he...doesn't. His heart is beating in a sure and steady rhythm, and his head is clear, like he can think for the first time in days.

"I could have told you that," Yibo says, sounding both smug and relieved, his hands still tight on Xiao Zhan's hips like he's never going to let him go.

"Shut up," Xiao Zhan scolds, but he's laughing. It's bubbling out of him, a feeling of overwhelming relief.

"Tell me something true, Zhan-ge," Yibo says, a wheedling tone, inching closer on his knees.

"You're annoying," Xiao Zhan says, and laughs harder at the way Yibo's eyes go wide and offended. "You're so annoying, I can't take it, you make me crazy." He can't wait anymore. He leans in, captures Yibo's mouth in a kiss, swallowing the outraged noises Yibo's making, until Yibo surges up and tumbles Xiao Zhan back onto the bed.

"Tell me more," Yibo says, breathless, his thigh pressed between Xiao Zhan's legs. He smells of sweat and summer. "Tell me the truth, Zhan-ge."

"I want you to fuck me again." Xiao Zhan revels in it, the way the truth rolls through him. "I can't stop thinking about it. I can still feel it, from last night."

Yibo's smile above him flashes bright. "I can do that," he says.

"I want more than that," Xiao Zhan says, and it's that same reckless, bold feeling, the words coming out before he can truly line them up in his head. He looks up at Yibo, his hands looped around his neck, his heart in his throat.

Yibo looks down at him, thoughtfully, then one at a time, reaches for Xiao Zhan's arms, tugging them down, and pinning them against the bed, doing it slowly, carefully. "I can do that, too," he says.

It's easy, then, to kiss Yibo, pinned underneath him, stretching up to reach his lips. Yibo kisses him hungrily, like he's been waiting for it, wanting it. Xiao Zhan gives himself up to it, his wrists lax under Yibo's hands, content to be held here, kept here, devoured by Wang Yibo.

"What?" Yibo asks, spinning around, his white Lan Wangji robes flowing around him, before he stops, his prop sword pointed directly at Xiao Zhan. "What, Zhan-ge, you're scared to fight, is that it?"

Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes, fighting the grin that wants to come out. "I'm a professional, Wang Yibo. Can you behave like a professional, as well?"

"I am." Yibo circles the sword at Xiao Zhan, a wide grin on his face. "I'm practicing. You should practice with me."

"Do you believe this?" Xiao Zhan comments to a passing tech. "How is this appropriate behavior?"

The tech smiles and bobs his head in a bow but keeps moving.

"You want me to behave?" Yibo asks. He drops the sword to his side, shaking his wig back over his shoulders and straightening up, his face falling into the solemn expression that would be pure Lan Wangji if it wasn't for the way one corner of his mouth keeps tugging up like he's fighting a grin. He sidles closer to Xiao Zhan, his arm brushing against his. "That didn't seem a big concern of yours last night."

Xiao Zhan feels his eyebrow shoot up, and he frowns at Yibo, shaking his head and glancing around to see if there are any cameras pointed in their direction. There aren't, which is an unlikely but welcome event, and he allows himself to press in against Yibo's arm. "I did, in fact, tell you to behave last night," he murmurs, not looking at Yibo, keeping his eyes on the middle distance. "You didn't listen to me then, either."

"You liked it," Yibo says, and Xiao Zhan can feel his fingers twitching by his side, like he wants to take hold of Xiao Zhan, the way he had last night.

"Lies," Xiao Zhan declares, pushing Yibo away with a gentle shove. If he stays this close, Xiao Zhan isn't going to be able to stop himself from touching him, and the way touching Yibo affects him is definitely not something he wants to be dealing with on set. "Lies and mistruths."

Yibo fakes a stumble, falling into a crouch, his eyes flashing as he looks at Xiao Zhan. "I think you'll find I only tell the truth, Zhan-ge."

"Is that so?" Xiao Zhan catches Yibo's hand and pulls him up. "I thought that was me."

"Places!" A tech is coming through the set, voice echoing in the trees, calling them into place. She nods at Yibo, whose scene is up next, and starts to hustle him away.

"It just comes naturally to me," Yibo calls over his shoulder to Xiao Zhan. "I'm a very honest person, Zhan-ge!"

Xiao Zhan waves him away, a broad grin spreading over his face. He feels flushed and too open, and has to stop himself from glancing around to see if anyone is watching him. It doesn't matter, it really doesn't. They keep it subtle, or subtle enough, and no one seems to really care. In the days since his opening up to Yibo, it appears that the curse—or whatever had been going on with him—has been assuaged. That broken-open feeling had crushed out whatever it was. He's in control again, knows when he's saying things, can lie again, even to Yibo, but he's finding that he doesn't have to. Doesn't want to. It still feels like a bell ringing in his heart whenever he's able to spill truths to Yibo, when Yibo is deep inside him, fucking him slowly and intently, while Xiao Zhan murmurs broken-open truths into his ear. When Yibo is falling asleep next to him, unable to keep his eyes open, fucked-out and glowing with it, making soft noises in response to the words that Xiao Zhan whispers to him.

The summer is almost at an end. Filming is almost done, and Xiao Zhan isn't sure what comes next for them, but the truth flutters inside him, the knowledge that there will be a them, one way or another. There's no certainty in life, he tries to tell himself, but there's a barely-there flicker like a shadow of the way he felt when he was under whatever spell it was, that tells him that there's a core of truth to the feeling.

"Things are better?"

He startles, then looks down to where Xuan Lu has come up beside him, so quietly her feet barely make a rustle against the forest floor.

She smiles up at him, nodding at Yibo's retreating back. "Between the two of you," she adds. "They seem better?"

Xiao Zhan nods. "They are."

"Good." She squints up at him. "The curse?" she asks, sounding curious. "Is that still going on?"

"No," Xiao Zhan says, huffing out a soft laugh. "Not exactly. I'm not—I think I was wrong about it."

Xuan Lu smiles up at him, as sweet and kind as she always is. "No such thing as curses, like I said."

"No such thing," Xiao Zhan echoes. He wonders, still, what it was that happened to him, but— "Anyway." He nudges her shoulder. "Should we go watch the famous Wang Yibo do his scene?"

Xuan Lu tucks her hand through Xiao Zhan's arm. "Lead the way," she says. "Let's go watch your boy."

He glances down at her, but she just gives him the same sweet smile, and tugs him towards the filming.