He hears Lan Zhan stir, the damnable reality of ears and body primed for different levels of awareness, his weariness and fear not enough to sink him so deep that wariness can't rise him up again. Yet, he does not startle before there is reason; yet he remembers, Lan Zhan can be kind, is often kind, to animals, does not have reason to strike first when there is no aggression or seeping wrongness that speaks of curses, speaks of resentment, speaks of everything in opposition to the way Lan Zhan seems inclined —

Thud.

The hair at his neck and along his spine stands on end as he bolts upward, sleep a visitor leaving swiftly as he tangles a paw in sheets, eyes wide, ears canted back, the second slipper's thud against the wall a reiteration that nothing he knows, or thinks he knows, holds and sense.

Lan Zhan is throwing slippers at him, is telling him retreat. Retreat? Is he sleep addled, or is Wei Wuxian? Retreat to where?

In sheer dumb confusion, paw still trapped, ears still back, eyes still improbably wide, Wei Wuxian the fox stares at his husband and cannot, for the moment, fathom what in the whole fuck of the world to do.