Thread by @cerbykerby

foxxian sitting in the middle of the cloud recesses and screaming. head tilted back, nose in the air, mouth open. just making sounds of pure chaos. it is cathartic for him.

is this part of an arranged marriage? is he a prisoner? it does not matter. he just screams. no one can stop him. he is too small and he fits into nooks and crannies that the lan dragons cannot reach. they cannot stop him.

on his and lwj's wedding night (a wedding he really didn't want! why would he? the lans are so boring!), he pops into his fox form and screeches his disapproval for all to hear, all night long.

frustrated, lwj drops blankets over him, and wwx just. keeps screaming. muffled.

he agreed to this marriage only (only!!) for the jiangs' sake, but that doesn't meant he's gonna let some stranger dragon have his way with him! he will resist! he will gladly stay in fox form for the rest of eternity, thank u! and there is nothing his "husband" can do about it!

on the third day of their marriage, lwj looks exhausted from the lack of sleep. distant relatives who come to visit assume that he's already a father (although dragons are virile, there is no way lwj became a dad so soon after marriage without some ~scandal~) but no. wrong.

lan cousin: Lan-er-gongzi, pardon my rudeness, but you seem tired.

lwj: mn. my husband keeps me up

lan cousin: oH MY—HOW CAN U JUST SAY THAT—

lwj: no, I mean— (pushes courtyard door open to reveal foxxian, yelling) —he literally won't let me sleep

wwx's logic is to make the lans expect the absolute least out of him, so that they ignore him and leave him in peace. and, AND, if he annoys lwj enough, maybe he will leave wwx alone and forget about the whole marriage consummation thing, and maybe one day wwx can go free!

lwj relinquishes his jingshi and goes to sleep coiled around a mountain in his dragon form, but he wakes up in the middle of the night to foxxian standing on his snout and yelling at his eyeball.

foxxian alternates between both of dragonji's eyes, just to make sure he sees him.

foxxian doesn't even know when next morning comes, but before he knows it, it's dawn, and he's horrified to find that he'd curled up on dragonji's snout and fallen asleep, his nose tucked into his tail for warmth.

and dragonji is awake. watching him be quiet.

ugh.

he floofs himself up indignantly and yells directly in dragonji's ear to make up for his oopsie nap. but it is too late. he'd fallen asleep on dragonji. dragonji saw him being all nice and quiet. fehck. his reputation is ruined. he will never recover from this.

from then on, lwj stays closer to him. lwj even DARES to reclaim his jingshi, which wwx is very upset about. he earned that place! fair and square! it's his! only he gets to sleep in that bed and scream from amidst its sheets!

but no. lwj sleeps in his own bed. very unfair.

one day, lwj picks foxxian up to transfer him to another room, which is so, so, SO not-cool of him. foxxian makes sure lwj knows this by gnawing the heck out of lwj's arm, just chewing away at lwj's wrist like a fluffy piranha. lwj endures it all with grace.

does foxxian feel guilty when he later sees how many bite marks are on lwj's arm? no. maybe just a bit. tiny. ack, but why isn't lwj tending to his bites? they look painful. some of them broke skin.

that night, foxxian yells for a little shorter than usual.

when lwj is asleep, wwx hops onto his bed to get a closer look at his arm. ah. indeed, the bites do look painful.

before wwx knows it, he's licking each of the cuts. they have already scabbed, but fox saliva can help them heal quicker. good thing that lwj is asleep, or else he—

a pair of golden eyes peer at foxxian from the darkness.

lwj is awake. and... fuck, that had better not be a smile. he is not allowed to smile at this.

furious, foxxian hits his face with a flurry of paws and jumps off the bed to go scream on the jingshi rooftop.

he doesn't get to scream for long. it starts to rain, then pour, then lightning flashes across the sky. foxxian may be loud, but he's not louder than thunder, and his voice is quickly drowned out.

he refuses to go back into the jingshi for shelter. he will not give in!

ah, but it's so miserable outside, and his fur is soaked. so he grumpily jumps down to ground level and squeezes himself into a small nook beneath the jingshi.

he's cold. and wet. and upset about the unfairness of it all. he just wanted to be left alone, but now he's lonely.

he barely stirs when hands lift him up, but he startles awake when he feels his paws touch hot water.

what follows is just pure chaos. foxxian is yelping and struggling like a fish. lwj tries to keep a grip on him and not drop him into the bathtub, because it is deep for a fox.

foxxian is so sure this is the end for him! lwj is going to DROWN him! how very insidious of hanguang-jun, picking a thunderstorm to muffle his cries!

foxxian latches fiercely onto lwj's arm. he will fight! he will not yield! he—

he feels blunt human teeth on his scruff.

cw: slight blood

foxxian is so surprised that he lets go of lwj's arm, leaving behind teethmarks with blood already welling up from them. lwj lets go of him too, looking far too regal and put-together for someone who just bit a fox.

lwj... /bit/ him. he BIT wwx.

lwj's audacity warrants a full-throttle caterwaul from foxxian. head thrown back. paws pushed stubbornly against lwj's arms. if his tail weren't soaked, it would be puffed up. he yells out his frustrations, his indignation, his whole protest against this marriage thing.

lwj patiently holds him as he screams. "The water is warm," he says. "You should bathe."

foxxian's cries waver; a hot bath DOES sound nice, if lwj doesn't try to drown him in it.

lwj takes it as a sign to lower him into the water. foxxian scrambles against his arm.

"Shhh." lwj starts kneading the water through foxxian's fur, washing out mud. "I'm holding you."

"No shit," foxxian would have said, if he could talk in fox form. instead, he grumpily submits to letting himself be washed. damn, but it feels nice. very luxurious.

as an act of rebellion, wwx shakes his fur out once he's out of the bathtub, spraying water everywhere. he scrambles away, trailing water all over the room as lwj chases him with a towel.

he's caught quickly, because there's suddenly a blue tail in his way, and he trips over it.

foxxian cannot believe this! this is CHEATING! the great hgj is cheating!! outraged, he bites the tail.

... oh.

hm.

the scales are... unpleasantly hard against his teeth. foxxian did not think this through. dragon skin is not good for gnawing on.

while foxxian is still processing the heinous crime committed against him, lwj scoops him up in a towel and starts drying him off. foxxian quickly turns into a snarling, growling ball of fluff.

by the time lwj is done, foxxian is poofy. and dry. and outraged.

unfortunately, he is also warm, and tired, and the thunderstorm outside is very soothing.

grumpily, foxxian jumps onto lwj's bed and curls up directly in the center of it, determined to inconvenience lwj as much as possible.

lwj doesn't say anything, and gets ready for bed.

foxxian watches him change into nightrobes.

... huh. those. are some very nice shoulders. a good width. and the muscles on that back are. good. strong. a nice sight. a nice—

foxxian screams into the mattress to get ahold of himself.

by the time lwj is dressed, foxxian is trying—and failing—to dig a hole through the bedsheets.

"It is time to sleep," lwj says, picking foxxian up.

foxxian gives an ungodly wail in protest, until lwj settles in bed and sets the fox on his chest.

foxxian wants to hate it, so much. but lwj is so warm, and the bedcovers are soft, and this is so much better than hunkering down outside in the rain.

and—ooh—lwj is scratching behind his ears, and it's making foxxian's hind leg go twitchy and kick in the air.

lwj makes a sound that could be laughter, and continues scratching foxxian's ear until his fingers naturally still with sleep.

foxxian is tired too. but before he falls sleeps, he petulantly licks lwj's wounds closed. he may be an asshole, but he has his standards.

the next morning feels lazy, and wwx wakes up to still more rain outside. it is very soothing, and it is still dark out, and he is so comfortable. yawning, he stretches and feels a tug on his head.

he freezes. that's hair. long hair. HIS long hair, tangled in his fingers.

somehow, in his sleep, he'd reverted back to his human form. he hasn't been human since his wedding, which was weeks ago.

and he is so, so naked. foxes don't wear clothes, after all.

he's about to shift back into his fox form when the body beneath him moves. he only has a few seconds to realize, with dread, that lwj is awake, before their positions are reversed. wwx's back is pressed into the mattress, and on top of him, lwj calmly watches him.

wwx feels—not scared, but incredibly nervous. this is not looking good. he tries to laugh. "Ah. Good morning."

"Hm." lwj leans closer, until their noses are almost touching. "Good morning."

wwx's danger-sense from before spikes. "Ah-h, um, so uh, nice weather, huh?"

lwj hums as he settles himself between wwx's legs—when did those open? wwx has no idea. traitorous legs. "It appears we will have to stay indoors."

wwx's breathing stutters when he feels lwj's hand on his knee, bringing it up to hook on lwj's hip. "W-why? I like the rain."

lwj noses along wwx's jawline. "Our staying indoors has nothing to do with the rain."

wwx tries very hard to think. it is the most difficult thing he's had to do. stupid sexy dragon. "I don't suppose—" he barely stifles a moan when lwj kisses his neck, "—y-you could let me go?"

lwj lifts his head to look at him. "And where do you plan to go?"

wwx shrugs as casually as he can. "You know, anywhere. Just doing my own thing. Adding a bit of background noise to the Cloud Recesses."

lwj shrugs his robes off of his shoulders. "Is that so."

belatedly, wwx's mind reminds him that he and lwj haven't consummated their marriage. "Yup." he makes himself sound put together, not too frayed. "You know me, just making noise wherever I go."

lwj presses their foreheads together; wwx fails to suppress a whimper.

"Then feel free to make as much noise as you please, right here, in this bed," lwj says, before leaning down and capturing wwx's lips in his.

And for the first time since he married into the gusu lan sect, wwx obeys.

-- THE END --

BONUS:

lan cousin, visiting again: lan-er-gongzi, is your husband still keeping you up?

lwj: mn.

lan cousin: huh, I would have expected him to be bored or hoarse from all that screaming by now

lwj: he screams less now

lan cousin:

lan cousin: ᵒʰ