Disclaimer: For the request: fake relationship with extra bed sharing, switch out the fluff for hurt/comfort, side of extra buff muscle goddess who is so sweet and gentle it hurts. By Moonwatcher13.
Yang drew in a deep breath and let it out, bending over the sink to splash some water on her face. When she originally put the ad in the paper offering to pose as someone's girlfriend, she'd expected some poor bastard with a bad temper or just a creepy misunderstanding of how to display affection- someone who might be able to get a date but probably shouldn't be in a relationship. She expected a few hours of acting nauseatingly sweet, a free meal, and way too many relatives asking far too many invasive questions. It wasn't the ideal way to spend her New Year's Eve, of course, but with Ruby pursuing her post grad degree, Dad off supervising Signal, and most of her friends with their own families, she didn't really have anyone else to turn to, and she didn't want to spend the holiday alone. Putting an ad in Vale's paper seemed like a way to make back some of the money she spent coming out here rather than staying on Patch.
But, the best laid plans, right? Not only had her expectations been absolutely shattered, now she'd landed herself in… well, it wasn't a terrible situation. All things considered, she actually kinda liked it, because it definitely beat out what she'd anticipated, if solely because she'd actually enjoyed her night thus far. Being on the arm of an attractive woman with a sharp wit definitely beat out a dude with a bad attitude, and being given free reign to act like a complete ass to scandalize the other party goers qualified as a helluva good time in her book. Her date for the night even actively encouraged it, and the woman's younger sister seemed to exacerbate the problem as often as possible, with a date of her own that sent ripples of anxiety through the stuffy brats masquerading as well-to-do adults. Really, Yang had thought they'd moved past the days where a human and Faunus dating would raise a brow, but she'd been proven wrong a few times over during the night, and took immense pleasure in ridiculing those reactions to the utmost degree.
Yang checked herself over in the mirror. She'd already taken off her beat up leather jacket, leaving her in just a tanktop splotched with oil, well defined arms on full display covered in intricate tattoos, a golden dragon curling around her right bicep and breathing fire down her arm while her left had interwoven bouquets of red and white roses. Her blonde hair- wild and untamed as ever- fell around her shoulders, that stubborn cowlick she could never get rid of poking up over the top of her head. Her jeans sat low on her hips- patched in places, with a few chains attached to her belt loops and one going to her wallet- and she'd already taken off her heavy boots, sighing as she began undoing the chains. She usually hated sleeping in her jeans but… well, she apparently didn't have much choice in the matter.
The snow had started about three hours before midnight and, by the time they'd rung in the new year, pretty much every major road was shut down, and just trying to get the front door open on the mansion- because no matter how many comments were made about it being 'smaller' than the family's Atlas home, it still counted as a fucking mansion in Yang's book- proved to be far too difficult. With the party goers effectively snowed in, many of the guests were given rooms of their own- and it stood to reason that if there were enough bedrooms for the people attending the party to have their own, this place couldn't qualify as 'small' to a sane person, seriously- but seeing as she was there as someone's date, she was both expected to share a room and a bed with the woman who'd hired her, which…
… honestly, the jury was still out on how she felt about that part.
Because Winter Schnee, for all her cold exterior and biting words, wasn't bad company to say the least. She had her rough spots but she adjusted quickly; it was Yang's job to misbehave as much as possible, of course, but the moment she started feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable or ready to drop the act and throw a real punch, the woman appeared, with a hand at the small of her back and a few quick words to either soothe her temper or eviscerate her target- sometimes both.
Wrapping the chains around her hand, Yang walked back into Winter's room, setting them down next to her wallet and scroll on the dresser. The woman had already changed into a pair of silk pajamas and was currently digging through her closet, looking for something suitable to sleep in for a person of Yang's stature. Winter had height, yes, but not the width of the blonde's shoulders or the girth of her arms, and they both felt confident she'd stretch out or rip just about anything handed to her.
With a huff, the woman turned away from the closet, cool blue eyes falling on Yang. "I do apologize, but I simply can't find anything in a proper size for you."
"That's fine," she replied, offering a smile. "Really, it's no big deal." She set her hands on her hips, looking around the room. Sparsely decorated and too damn big for one person anyway, her gaze ultimately fell on a rug by the balcony doors. "Do you have an extra blanket, though?"
"Certainly." She pulled a pale blue sheet from the closet and motioned towards the bed. "Though, I assure you the comforter is rather warm."
"Oh, I was just gonna bed down over here." Yang walked over to the rug, kneeling down to run her hands across it. The texture wasn't something she'd normally pick but it didn't scratch too much and she could deal with that for a night. "I'm… sure you don't want to share your bed with a stranger."
"Nonsense; I'll not have you sleeping on the floor like a dog." Winter's brows pinched together, looking between the sheet and the blonde before squaring her shoulders. "You'll take the bed and I'll sleep on the rug."
"No, absolutely not." She waved her hands in front of her defensively, trying to ward off any attempt to remove her from the rug. Not that the woman had made any such attempts, of course, but she did prefer being proactive. "I can't let you sleep on the floor in your own room."
"As the host, I can't let my guest do that."
"But you're paying me to be here, remember?" She shrugged. "Consider it a… workplace hazard."
"Oh, so you make a habit of playing the role of bad girlfriend?" One pale brow arched.
A blush came to her cheeks. "N-no, honestly, I've never done this before! But, really, I'm not going to get a wink of sleep if you're on the floor; it's only going to get colder, ya know."
"Then it seems we're at an impasse." Winter nodded, gesturing with the blanket in her hand. "Either we're both sleeping in the bed or we're both on the floor. If we sleep on the floor, neither of us is getting any rest, because I refuse to have a good night's sleep if you're not in the bed."
"You drive a hard bargain, ya know that?" Yang sighed, pressing her lips into a thin line for a moment. "Alright, fine." She stood up, holding up a finger. "Just… I'll only get in that bed on one condition."
"Name it."
"If you start to feel uncomfortable, you have to tell me, and we'll figure something else out." Shrugging, she ran a hand through her hair. "I just don't want you feeling like this is the only way and putting up with it for the sake of that. So, you have to promise me you'll speak up if it bothers you."
"Very well; I believe those are amenable terms." The woman inclined her head, reaching up to release the severe bun her hair had been pulled into all night. The white strands spilled over her shoulders like rivulets of moonlight and the blonde quite nearly forgot how to think straight for a moment. "But the same goes for your comfort. Please, speak up if you begin feeling uncomfortable-"
A sudden, awful shuddering sound echoed from elsewhere in the house as the lights went out, distance cries of alarm rising through the house.
"Was that the power or does this place have independent generators?" Yang raised a brow.
"Both; we lost power earlier in the night and the generators kicked on; now we've lost the generators." Winter sighed, then looked at the bed. "We'd best get under the covers now. The temperature will only drop as the night wears on."
"Good idea," she replied, going to the bedside and pulling back the covers, sliding in and wincing at how nice it felt. She'd never had sheets so soft or a mattress quite as ridiculously comfortable; she had half a mind to drop off right then and there.
But then the other side of the mattress dipped and she turned her head, watching as Winter joined her, and noting the sour turn to her lips only visible thanks to the sparse light from the balcony window. They probably should pull the curtains closed to keep out the chill, she thought idly, but it was the only light available to them.
"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Yang turned onto her side. "It's still not too late."
"Why are you so concerned?" Something about the tilt of her mouth spoke volumes to the thoughts swirling in her eyes. "You needn't make spectacle if you desire an excuse. I'm sure I can find another room in this godforsaken house-"
She frowned. "Hey, I'm not objecting to sleeping in the same bed as you, but I definitely understand if you have a problem sharing a bed with someone you don't know."
"You speak as if any of us can truly know another." Winter scoffed, turning her gaze towards the ceiling. "That's not how people work, Yang. Visages, masks- we're all puppets in one way or another. People may become familiar with the marionette, but never the puppeteer. Eventually, you become the mask."
"That's not true." Getting into a philosophical discussion in the middle of the night didn't rank high on the list of things she wanted to do in the new year but… well, when it prompted the woman to roll onto her side so they could be face-to-face… she had to admit the benefits of the discussion weren't lost on her.
"If it's not, then tell me one thing about me. About the real me." She sighed. "Tell me so I can maybe believe that such a thing exists." With a shake of her head, she blinked and rolled over. "The wine's gone to my head. Forget I said that."
Silence stretched for a moment before Yang inhaled, letting it out slowly.
"You love jazz music," she said, laying on her back and looking up at the ceiling. "And swing dancing- you can waltz, but you like the more energetic motions that come with swing." Tapping her fingers against her stomach, she kept listing things off, going with whatever came to mind. "You like my jokes- or just jokes in general, and you wish you could tell them, but no one here besides you and your sister have decent senses of humor anyway. You spend so much time biting your tongue, you can't help but blurt out the few things you're able to say, and it sounds sharp and biting to others. You don't mean it, though. You just spend so much time wearing a muzzle, when it gets taken off, you just… snap at the wind."
For a moment, she thought maybe Winter ignored her intentionally or had already fallen asleep, and shut her own eyes to do the same.
"Did you really just compare me to a dog?"
She cracked an eye open. "Well, in my head, I was picturing a wolf. Ya know, a lot of people think there's such a thing as 'lone wolves' but… there's actually really not." Yang sighed. "Plenty of wolves on Patch; all of them belong to packs. Family units and such- the ones that get outcast, well, it's not by their choice. So even though you act like you're okay with being this… ice queen alone in your castle, staring down any who dare approach, you… really just wish someone would make you feel a little less like it's you against the universe." Turning her head, she watched as Winter slowly rolled over. "You didn't hire me to annoy your dad or to embarrass the people he considers high society. You did it so you could feel like, just for a moment, you had someone completely on your side, aside from your sister. Someone who cared enough to stand beside you… even if they cared only for the paycheck at the end."
"You're very perceptive." They looked at each other for a moment. "I suppose the question becomes what will you do with this knowledge."
The blonde rolled onto her side and scooted closer, reaching out to cup Winter's jaw. The woman's skin felt smooth to the touch whereas her hand was roughened by callouses and cuts from years of manual labor. Slowly- giving her plenty of time and room to object- Yang leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Winter's lips, gentle and chaste.
"I will tell you now that you are worth far more than whatever people have told you before and screw all those stuffy idiots who don't have the good sense to recognize that." Her fingers traced up, pushing back a few strands of moonlight hair. "There's someone out there for you, ya know. Someone who'll take one look at you and every day thank the stars and Maidens they have you in their life, on their side, by their side."
"Someone. But not you."
"C'mon," she said, chuckling. "I don't get that lucky. I'm just a grease monkey with a sense of humor. You can do way better."
For a moment, she thought that was the end of it.
And then she found herself flat on her back, looking up into those cool blue eyes flashing with icy fire.
"You don't know me as well as you think," Winter said, hovering over her. "Else you'd know that I don't take kindly to others determining what's best for me."
"I… guess that kinda is what started this whole thing off, huh?" She swallowed, heart hammering in her chest. "But, um, I- I really- I'm not as much of a complete asshole usually-"
"You haven't truly been an asshole at all." Her shoulders fell a little, a smile coming to her lips. "You've been sweet and kind to those who deserve it. You've been patient and understanding when even I've been tempted to throw a punch. More to the point: you gave me a chance you likely shouldn't have." Winter leaned down, drawing her into a soft kiss, and her fingers twitched with the urge to grab somewhere, slip under silk, but she resisted by the barest of margins. "So… perhaps we can amend the terms of our arrangement?"
"How's that?" She blinked, dazed, but hanging onto every word.
"Rather than pay you the sum we agreed, how about a date?" Winter's lips curled into a smirk. "Dinner on me."
"I'm not sure if you're being literal or figurative but either way my answer is yes." Yang nodded, wrapping her arms around the woman's waist and pulling her closer. "Now, come a little closer. You're letting the cold air in."
A positively wicked gleam came to the woman's eyes then. "I suppose we should heat it up then, hmmm?"
"Hey, don't move too fast." She smirked. "Slow and steady wins the race, right?"
"I thought you'd be the speed demon sort, honestly."
"Then you don't know me all that well yet. I like things to last, if ya catch my drift." Yang chuckled. "But I don't mind testing the waters."