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"Ah shit, just kill me now."
He says it, but his pants go down anyway.
How can this drama get so much in his head? Isn't that unhealthy?
He knows somewhat that acting can be like this. He knows that a role can fill your head even when the cameras stop rolling. Some roles are easier to shake off than others, while others… can be more problematic. That is, they won't leave you, you take them home, it's a shitfest.
Lan Wangji—is problematic.
A guy who carries what he feels deeply inside himself, is how Wang Yibo has described Lan Wangji before. And oh man, what that even means. Lan Wangji is locked up so tight he is basically a pressure cooker, his feelings so potent that some days Wang Yibo's head spins with them.
Plus—what did the girls call it again? Those stories that stick to you because the main couple takes so long to get together, but they dance around each other so much that you are seduced and then left frustrated for days without satisfaction?
A "slow burn", that's it.
A slow burn that leads to what, Wang Yibo wonders. Death, most likely.
It has to be, or maybe he really is just going crazy. This particular slow burn isn't even going to end in a fairy tale kiss (or at least a kiss before the main character death) like any self-respecting romance drama would, and that's why it sucks.
(Sure, when they were casted, that was even a necessary condition, otherwise two mainstream male idols just won't take the roles. It was a good thing then. Now… is a weirdly different story.)
Listen, they know what they are doing. They know the source material, were practically required to read the novel. Some gremlin (okay, Xuan Lu is actually very sweet) even thought it was a good idea to share the extra chapters in the cast group chat. (Wang Yibo could not look at Xiao Zhan for the whole day the following day after that.) It's just that they cannot show it, that's the thing, and so whatever is between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian has to be below the radar, practically invisible and never explicit.
But they know.
It is therefore all deliberate—the proximity, the way their shoulders brush, the long looks and the playful eyes that skirt just that slight edge of flirting. Xiao Zhan is even especially good at it, damn him, and that's... kind of the problem.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit--"
Something not many people might know: riding out a role, a character, empathizing with his feelings? That gets you. It gets you in weird ways, looking at the world through his eyes, feeling the world through his skin. When the love of his life presses against his side, holds on to him, leans in every time but always pulls away—that shit gets you.
Right, so, problem: it's stupid embarrassing and all kinds of wrong, but Wang Yibo does it anyway. Today was a particularly touchy day, Wei Wuxian hanging off of Lan Wangji half of the time and smiling playfully ("Flirt with him a little!" the director had even yelled) at him the other half of the time. And so, now back at home, Wang Yibo is wound up in ways he really, really shouldn't be, but his hand finds his dick because, well, what's a guy to do?
He breathes in, easing into the sensation, his body relaxing as it finds that good flow. He pulls in the exact way he likes, his head falling back against the couch as he lets himself groan through the pleasure, even if, as expected, his mind supplies him with things he really can do without.
Sometimes, he feels he is still Lan Wangji. In fact, these days, they shoot for straight days and have so little sleep, he sleeps and wakes as Lan Wangji. Even when they can go to take care of other commitments, Wang Yibo ends up bringing him here, inside the confines of his home. Lan Wangji is able to pass the mess in Wang Yibo's hallways (he means to put those boxes away, really) and into his bedroom, and he usurps Wang Yibo's fantasies without a by-your-leave or even a fucking excuse-me.
For months Wang Yibo has ridden through this, watching fantasies that are not even his own. He sits on the couch in his room, doing what men are wont to do when left alone, but maybe not with the kind of images that get most men off this time, because the body bouncing on Wang Yibo's lap is not a woman. That guy Lan Wangji is relentless (which, thanks to those incense burner chapters, Wang Yibo knows is even fucking in character) and of course the object of Lan Wangji's affections just happens to have his face.
Which brings him to Problem #2: all those jokes Wang Yibo throws out, about "Handsome Zhan Ge", liking his face, him being nice to look at? Yeah. Yeah, they're half-meant. He finds he does not really have to dig all that deeply to fill his arsenal for their regular "compliments battle", because Xiao Zhan (his Wei Ying) is handsome, is even crazily enough the most beautiful man Wang Yibo knows.
(This is even including the face he sees everyday in the mirror. Really. Think about that for a second and listen to how fucked up that sounds.)
Look, maybe it's just that Xiao Zhan is an attractive guy, and Lan Wangji loves his Wei Ying probably more than what is strictly healthy. Wang Yibo just got caught in the crossfire. He's even met the guy once before and it was all good and fine and nothing happened, but it's a different story when Wang Yibo plays a character who is in love (read: absolutely shit-faced crazy head over heels in love) with Xiao Zhan's character. Whether the fact that he is good-looking is a blessing or a curse, Wang Yibo still has not decided.
'Don't go there. Don't think about him, not as himself.'
The pleasure builds, and he has to work not to let his thoughts stray to further territories. At the very least, he can use Lan Wangji's head space as an excuse, say it is only Wei Ying who is there with him. His skin under Wang Yibo's palms, his voice in his ear, and his lips…
red and plush and with that mischievous mole just right there peeking underneath
"Gods." He drowns in expletives as much as he does in the sensations his thoughts bring. On crazy days (like today), his brain even supplies him with the picture and imagined sensation of being kissed, of strong hands in his hair and a deep voice moaning in his ear, and without fail those things push him to finish, coming harder than he can remember in his albeit yet short-lived life.
God damn it.
Maybe if Lan Wangji wasn't so fucking in love, this would not have hit him so hard. Having filmed the latter episodes where Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were all but joint at the hip,
(Hah, thinks Wang Yibo, I wish.)
Wang Yibo is this close—this close—to revealing to the first brave interviewer who asks, that yes, actually, Lan Wangji is a hair's width away from pushing Wei Wuxian to the ground and fucking him six ways to Sunday. You don't go around latching on to a man, falling in his arms, threatening to undress for him, sleeping on his bed, gallivanting in his clothes, and whatever else Wei Wuxian does, and just not—think that does nothing.
Xiao Zhan will probably kick him, in the balls, but then really maybe that is the least of what Wang Yibo deserves.
"Fuck. Oh my God, just die." Whom he even means—himself, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, or Xiao Zhan—he does not know.
People ask why it seems he can't quite manage looking at Xiao Zhan's face without laughing, or more often, without hitting him. For sanity, that's the answer he can't say, because either Wang Yibo releases all that tension by hitting the guy, or…
Or.
Besides, he thinks to himself even as he pulls out a tissue from the box on his bedside table, Xiao Zhan gives as good as he gets anyway. Some days he is even first to hit Wang Yibo, sometimes first to laugh on set when their eyes so much as meet across the crowd. And, well, Wang Yibo gets that, it's even exactly what he is doing, so far be it for him to judge a guy who—
Wait a minute.
"Oh no. Wow, no. Don't you dare go there."
He slaps his cheek, does it on the other side for good measure. Is he crazy? Xiao Zhan is so stupidly good and decent, he can't possibly— like one crazy main actor in the cast is enough, thank you very much.
He balls the soiled tissue and lazily throws it at the bin in the corner of the room. He misses.
"Aaaaarrghh!"
He falls back along the couch, lets his limbs fall like limp noodles on the cushions and on the floor. He buries his burning face on a pillow.
"This show will drive me crazy."