Blackfeather Woods sleep is a welcome gadget in our headbondhood

It isn't the reaction he expects; he'd thought Taikon might respond better to hearing the logic behind his decision, the reason he feels so confident in his ability to survive. Instead, he reacts as if Zephyr had intentionally provoked him; the response is so unexpected, the wraith has no time to put up walls against it. The first snap puts a crack in his icy defenses, and the rest only widens it, drives it deeper.
His ears fall flat, and he finds himself caught between fear and hurt and anger and just a little relief; guilty relief, but relief all the same, to know that Taikon cares so much. Not enough to choose him... but enough to yell at him. Finding pleasure in it feels twisted, pathetic, desperate on levels Zephyr doesn't even want to think about it. Lately it always feels like he's grasping at straws anyway.
And then Taikon is yelling, and the fear and hurt win, and it all channels into anger. His hackles rise in stages along his spine, tail flagging instinctively. A whimper-growl rises in his throat, then cuts off abruptly. You have no right — He manages, taking a step back. He thinks of when they'd first met; the night he barely remembers, then later, waking up tucked against Taikon. He thinks of the night they'd shared in the mountains, and how everything had changed after that. He thinks of Mal and Kratos and Daighre and Pheiros and Phillip.
And then he starts to cry.