Chapter 17: The Nine-tailed Fox has a spring dream [+18]
tw: sexual content
That night they sleep on the same bed, as they had been doing at the Prince's palace. Lan Tian falls asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow, exhausted from the grueling day.
Wu Yun takes far longer. He lays on his back staring at the ceiling, and contemplating how he never thought he would see this room again, and that now that he's here everything is different. Tomorrow he'll be leaving to somewhere uncertain, and who knows what will happen there? In the meantime, he isn't any closer to returning to his original shape, or learning how to kill the Jade Emperor.
He never questioned it before, but he wonders now: why does he have such a bone-deep certainty that he must kill the Jade Emperor? Is this something that just happens, to all nine-tailed foxes? A life quest they must fulfill? If that's the case, couldn't his be easier?
He turns on his side, pillowing his face on his palms to look at Lan Tian's slumbering profile. He thinks that if his life quest was to find a lifelong friend he would have already fulfilled it. He wonders if Lan Tian will return to his river when he gets back to his dragon form as he said he would in the beginning of their journey. He has said multiple times that Wu Yun only brings him trouble, so why wouldn't he?
Wu Yun remembers the vivid whip marks on his back and feels a stinging sensation creeping up the back of his throat and nose. He falls asleep amid these fitful thoughts.
He wakes up in a completely different room. He's lying on his front in a round bed, surrounded by cream silk and a familiar haitang blossom scent. He realizes slowly that someone is looming over him, peppering gentle kisses over his naked back.
"Ling Yan is beautiful all over." It's that familiar voice that he can't quite place. "But I especially like this mole right here," the man says, and bends down to kiss a spot on Wu Yun's back that makes him shiver. "And this one right here." He kisses him again, lower this time, and Wu Yun feels heat gathering below his stomach.
"Stop your teasing. You've made me wait long enough," Wu Yun says. Or, Ling Yan says, he supposes, only he seems to be inhabiting his body if not his mind, as words keep coming unbidden out of lips Wu Yun feels should belong to him, but that he can't control.
"Are you?" The man trails his fingers down Wu Yun's back, over the swell of his ass, and into a place that Wu Yun never gave much thought to, but that when the man's finger breaches makes his spine seize up in pleasure unrivaled even by the warmest bath.
"I am, for over an hour Shu Luan has made me wait," Wu Yun moans, raising his hips to meet Shu Luan's fingers. "If you don't do anything, I'll find someone else."
Shu Luan. The name of the man who smells like haitang blossoms is Shu Luan. Wu Yun wants to remember his name when he wakes up, but the pleasant sensations running from that tight spot all the way through his body make his thoughts flow slowly like honey out of the honeycomb.
"Ling Yan will? I won't let him find anyone else." Shu Luan removes his fingers and slaps Wu Yun's ass playfully, his laugh is as warm as his broad hands.
The heat of Shu Luan's body is gone for a moment, and Wu Yun wishes Ling Yan's body would turn around to see what he's doing, but he remains still, shivering in anticipation. When Shu Luan returns, he pulls Wu Yun by the back of his thighs, and slowly spreads that tight spot around something hot and slippery.
Wu Yun gasps from the sensation of being penetrated like that. It fills him more than the fingers ever could. He feels so full he thinks he could burst. He never wants it to stop.
Ling Yan must feel the same way because he raises himself up on his elbows, and shoves himself back to meet the hot length piercing him like a sweet knife.
He glances over his shoulder at Shu Luan, and the only thing Wu Yun can see is a muscled chest dotted with drops of perspiration. Wu Yun says, "Deeper."
Shu Luan groans, and leans over Wu Yun to grab his hair in his fist. "What Ling Yan wants, I'll give."
He starts moving with intent then, forcing Wu Yun back on the bed with the strength of his thrusts. There's a spot inside that Shu Luan rubs against with every downwards thrust, that makes his vision white out like a million stars being born at once. He feels so full, so hot inside, that he thinks he might die from this.
Shu Luan reaches one hand under him, and takes hold of Wu Yun's hard length, gripping it firmly in his smooth fingers, and Wu Yun moans raggedly. Uncertain whether to move forward against that sweet grip, or backwards into the violent thrusts setting him on fire from the inside.
Shu Luan grips tightly on to Wu Yun's waist with his other hand, and leans down to trail wet kisses from his nape up to the soft shell of his ear. "It feels so good inside Ling Yan. I could fuck you for hours."
His honeyed words make Wu Yun seize up as if struck by lightning. Pleasure runs through him from that shivery spot inside all the way through his limbs. He closes his eyes against the onslaught of it, as wave upon wave of sweet torment crashes into him. He gives into it like a narrow stretch of beach that can no longer withstand the unyielding strength of the sea, and disappears under the ocean.
When he opens his eyes again he's no longer laying in cream silk sheets and surrounded by Shu Luan's heat. He's back on his human body, feeling bereft in ways he cannot name.
Lan Tian is awake, and looking at him with concern in his amber eyes. "Is everything alright? You were making sounds in your sleep."
Wu Yun moves around on the bed, and feels something wet and hot between his legs, sticking his skin to his inner robes. His face flushes up in mortification, he doesn't know what it is, but he's sure it happened because of the dream.
He casts a panicked look around the room, and spots the tub from the night before. Still filled with the water from their bath, since neither of them could be bothered to empty it.
He jumps out of bed, throwing the covers over Lan Tian's confused face and jumps into the cold water, robes and all.
The shock of the chilled water against his heated skin makes him shiver violently, but at least he no longer feels like he could die from embarrassment. Whatever happened in that dream he knows he must keep it to himself. He would rather drown himself than try to explain to Lan Tian any of what he felt.
Lan Tian leaves the bed and walks towards the tub, sitting down on the edge, and looking down at Wu Yun with a worried frown. "You hate cold water, what are you doing?"
"I overheated during sleep. I want to cool down," he answers, biting down on his lower lip to hide the shivering.
"Ok, then scoot over, I want to get in too," Lan Tian says, and starts to take off his inner robes.
For some reason the idea of having Lan Tian naked so close to him sends Wu Yun into a panic.
He hurries out of the tub, and almost trips over his wet robes. He wraps last night's towel around his shoulders and says, with a smile that stretches the corners of his lips painfully. "All yours. I'm done now."
Before Lan Tian can say anything, he leaves the room through the door leading to the courtyard, thinking that some fresh air might help clear his muddled thoughts.
---
The fresh air doesn't help. If anything, Wu Yun might have caught a cold from going outside in dripping wet robes. At least he no longer feels like there's a fire burning under his skin.
The fire probably would have gone out anyway, later in the morning when they meet a somber Lu Meng at the Jiang estate gates. He gives them back the horses they rode in the day before, harnessed to a cart filled with provisions, changes of clothes and the rest of the money they were promised.
"Thank you again for all you've done," he says, bowing deeply with his hands clasped to Wu Yun. "I hope you have a safe journey, and that the next time we see each other, A-Tan can join us." His voices catches in his throat when he says Jiang Tanmei's name.
"We are going to the Kunlun mountains, we don't know when we'll be back," Wu Yun says. Or if they will be back, he doesn't add.
Lu Meng nods. "Lan Tian told me, you're going to ride through very harsh terrain to get there. Which is why I'm giving you the cart, a carriage would only slow you down and endanger you on the narrower passes."
Wu Yun goes back into the courtyard and coaxes the phoenix, now perched on top of a peach tree, back into the sling, at least until they are underway.
She sullenly assents, and he carries her to the back of the cart, where he deposits her, none too gently, between two chests.
"You're taking the phoenix with you?" Lu Meng asks, watching Wu Yun trying to wrestle her down into a position where she won't draw too much attention.
"We're going to release her further away from other humans," Lan Tian says.
"I wish I could thank her for her part in saving A-Tan," he says, looking at the cart and the two of them with a complicated expression. Two parts sorrow, one part hope.
"Oh, she knows, don't worry." Wu Yun climbs up on his horse, who he decides he'll call Feng Xing, on account of his incredible speed, and unruly temper.
As if to confirm how apt his name is, Feng Xing tries to buck him off as soon as he settles on the saddle.
Lan Tian tries to hide his laughter, and fails. Wu Yun shoots him a glare over the shoulder.
"Before I forget, Qiao Xiaojian wrote this for Jiang Tanmei," Lan Tian says, taking the letter out of his sleeve pocket. "It's supposedly an account of how we helped the captives escape, but there will probably be a few complaints about Wu Yun that will surely brighten his mood, when he wakes up."
"Hey!" Wu Yun says, indignant.
Lu Meng accepts the letter with a small smile. "I'm sure it will."
They leave the Jiang estate and Lu Meng behind with the sun shining high above the pine trees. It's a crisp autumn day, the kind that signals the end of the last of the lingering warmth of summer.
Wu Yun looks once behind his shoulder at Lu Meng's solitary figure against the destroyed gates, and wonders if the Wu Yun who arrived here not too long ago would recognize the Wu Yun leaving it.
He looks sideways at Lan Tian's regal bearing on horseback, and comforts himself with the knowledge that at least he'll be leaving in good company.
"What are you smiling at?" Lan Tian asks.
"I don't know, just contemplating my luck, I guess," he answers with a smirk, and kicks Feng Xing into a gallop.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ThirtyTyrants
ThirtyTyrants This is probably the tamest smut I've ever written haha. I'm still unsure about how much is allowed on WN, and how explicit things can get, so I wrote as if I had a catholic nun behind my shoulder checking the smut for tastefulness.
The nun disapproved of Shu Luan's last line.
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