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“Howwwww about this one?”

Springing herself onto the soft cushion, she sighed in relief at the pleasantly firm yet squishy material now supporting her weight.

This one - this one was perfect.

Watching Blake eye the object with an intensity usually reserved for strangers trying to pander goods in the park, Yang giggled at how absurdly long it was taking her partner to make the decision to even allow the questionable material to touch her.

“Well come on, it’s not gonna bite you,” Yang prodded, patting the space beside her invitingly.

Finally taking the bait, Blake decided to join her on the display mattress in the showroom they were currently browsing, but...no sooner had the girl’s coattails touched the foamy surface did she pop right back up again.

“Nope - not that one.”

Slack-jawed, Yang watched Blake walk away from her and the completely comfortable, if not heavenly, creation of high density foam and...whatever else mattresses were made of.

“What do you mean, that’s not the one??” she shouted in disbelief, jumping down from her perch and jogging several paces to resume her place by Blake’s side.  “That one was super comfy!”

A distracted “hmm” was Yang’s only response as Blake carefully read the display tag on the next contender - reading the entire description in full before delicately pressing a hand down on the mattress’ surface, picking her spot as carefully as if there were invisible bear traps taped to the surface.  Lifting her hand and dutifully watching the hand-shaped indentation disappear, Blake made a dejected noise before walking away without any further explanation.

Hopping onto the rejected mattress, Yang flopped backwards to soak in the full effect of the spine-hugging frame.

So cushiony...so cozy...so what was wrong with it??

“Blakeeeee-”

Whining the girl’s name, she ran to catch up again - finding Blake already two more mattresses down the first row in the massive mattress warehouse.

Honestly, Yang had had a much different expectation for today than how it was currently playing out.  She was going mattress shopping.  With her extraordinarily attractive girlfriend.  To complete the furnishing of the apartment they’d just moved into together.  Seriously, did it get any better than that?

But apparently she was a complete pushover when it came to the slab of foam gracing her bed frame.  The very first mattress, at the very entrance to the store, won her over the instant she’d thrown her Girmm-battered and bruised body upon it.

On the other hand...her tough-as-nails, ex-White Fang badass of a girlfriend was not so easy to impress.

“So, um, Blake?” Yang asked as yet another mattress was dismissed after failing the ‘handprint’ test.  “What exactly are we looking for?”

“The perfect mattress…” Blake mused in response, studying yet another tag while seeming to pay little attention to the question.

“Yes, but what makes a mattress perfect?” Yang pressed more forcefully this time.

Blake finally turned towards Yang then - amber eyes and undivided attention being given without a second thought.  At first, it seemed like the question was confusing to Blake - but then there was the slightest of twitches in one adorably fuzzy ear that gave away the faintest smidge of embarrassment.

“It needs to be extra...fluffy.”

“Extra flu...wait, fluffy??”

While Yang was rooted to the floor in her current state of incredulity, Blake brushed past on her way to the next aisle of the showroom.

“Yes, fluffy.”

“Fluffy like...like a -”

Cat-like eyes locked onto Yang again, only this time flashing very seriously in an unspoken sign of impending danger.

“Like a what, Yang?  What do you associate fluffy with?”

“Uhhh….clouds??”

Had her voice not come out so high-pitched and squeaky, that would’ve been the perfect answer.  Instead, Yang earned a playful glare from Blake before she continued with her shopping.

“I like fluffy things - is that a crime?” 

“Of course not!” Yang immediately replied, before unwillingly letting out a few chuckles at the tiny amount of irony at that assertion.  “But Blake, really!  It’s kinda funny, right?  That you love fluffy things, and you’re a - well, you know - a...uh, battle tested killing machine?”

For the love of all that was holy, she needed to never say the word ‘cat’ again.  Or even think it.  The murderous look she’d garnered towards the end of her rambling had nearly turned her into a giant, blonde chunk of immaculately sculpted stone.

With a sigh, Blake turned fully towards her, crossing those oh-so-lovely arms across that oh-so-lovely chest.

“Yang -”

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry!” Yang butted in preemptively, knowing an apology-type situation when she fell face first into one.  “I’m just surprised, that’s all.  I didn’t realize that your derrière was so tend-ère!”

As a few more chuckles escaped her, she caught the faintest of smiles flitting across Blake’s lips - letting it slip that Blake wasn’t in any way upset, but was actually silently enjoying Yang’s continued bumbling way of speaking before thinking.

But that didn’t mean Yang would escape without a talking to.

“Yang, have you ever slept on the ground?”

“Well, yeah, all the -”

“When it’s not covered in grass?”

Images of warm nights spent on the plush, green grass in her backyard with her trusty yellow sleeping bag immediately disappeared from her mind - replaced by the sidewalk out front.

“Um…”

“Or on top of a moving train?”

“Well -”

“In a tree?  And a treehouse doesn’t count.”

“Dammit.  No…”

“Or on a rooftop - without blankets?  In the middle of winter?”

“Jesus!  Blake!  When did you do that??”

The comment finally made Blake suck in a deep breath before flashing one of those ever-patient smiles Yang’s way.

“I’ll tell you about that later - what I’m trying to say now is that sleeping in those places taught me to appreciate a nice, fluffy bed whenever I was afforded the luxury of one.  This is the first mattress we’re buying together, for the first bed we’ll share together.  I want it to be perfect so that when we go to sleep, together, safe and sound after whatever the world has thrown our way, I can feel exactly how far we’ve come.”

Blinking after Blake finished talking, Yang opened her mouth to respond only to close and open it once more.  It felt like a hundred tiny little arrows had just lodged themselves through her heart, each one fired with deadly accuracy through the disarmingly honest words Blake had just shared.

There was nothing that pushed Yang to action more than one of Blake’s mini-rants...and this was certainly no exception.

“Then we’re going to find the fluffiest bed in the universe, dammit!” Yang proclaimed, quickly drawing Blake up into a tight hug before setting her feet carefully back on the ground and pulling her towards the next mattress.

This one’s gotta be more fluffy,” Yang presumed, waiting as Blake tried out the top of the pad - only to again shake her head with a firm ‘no.’

“Not fluffy enough…”

Trying out the mattress herself, Yang shook her head in disbelief.  It made no sense what Blake was searching for, but if this one wasn’t fluffy enough, then it wasn’t fluffy enough!

Hand-in-hand, they continued to the next selection.

“Hey,” Yang said, just as Blake was about to test it out, “Do you remember that time you cut down three Ursa with one swing of Gambol?”

The question brought a curious gaze her way.

“Yes...why?”

Shrugging her shoulders, Yang suppressed the urge to giggle at the juxtaposition between battlefield Blake and bedroom Blake.  In a fight, Blake was a tiger - agile, fast, predatory, with claws that cut to the bone (if not through it).  But at home, Blake was much more like a...well, a little kitten.  She liked a quiet life, loved to snuggle, and was incredibly slow getting out of bed.

“You’re a really amazing huntress, you know that?” Yang concluded, flashing a big smile at a statement she wholeheartedly believed to be true.

Of course, Blake’s ‘uh huh…’ response signified that she knew the compliment was meant to cover up for something else, but the subject was dropped in favor of testing the newest mattress before them.

“This one isn’t fluffy at all.”

After letting out a sigh of despair at their lack of success, Yang suddenly had an idea - a brilliant idea, if she said so herself.

“What if we stacked one on top of the other?” she suggested, pointing to the two recent mattresses in front of them.

“I don’t think that will work…”

“But we won’t know until we try, right?  Come on, let’s at least try it!”

Without waiting for an answer (she knew Blake would agree anyway, eventually…), Yang reached down and easily pulled one of the mattresses off of the standard bed frame it had been resting on and dropped it on top of the other.

“There!” she said, grinning in satisfaction while dusting off her hands as if that had actually been hard work.  “Try it out now?”

It was only after a slight eye roll that Blake pressed down on the mattress before once again shaking her head.

“It’s pretty much the same - still not fluffy,” she replied, before giving Yang a smile brimming with appreciation.

Her ingenious idea had just been dashed to pieces, but she could care less as long as Blake was looking at her that way.  Even when her ideas were dumb or pointless, Blake still appreciated the thought and effort.  Blake appreciated Yang’s attempt, no matter how useless it ended up being.  Which meant Yang was always trying, in anyway possible, to give Blake everything she ever dreamed of or wished for.  

That was the whole thought behind the rather exorbitant phrase Yang proclaimed on a daily basis.  

‘For you, Blake, anything.’

Even when it was said as a joke, or as a tease, Yang truly meant it - as much as she had when she’d first whispered the words into Blake’s ear that one night at Beacon...when it had been just the two of them standing beneath the stars with nothing but cleared air between them.

For Blake, she would do absolutely anything.  Even if that meant she had to turn what should have been a run-of-the-mill shopping trip into a quest of epic proportions.

It was only when she turned her attention back to that quest and away from Blake’s mystical amber eyes that she noticed the myriad of curious glances being directed their way by the other shoppers lingering about.

“Jeez, you’d think they’ve never seen a double-stacked mattress before…” she joked as they walked to the next contender, reaching down to take Blake’s hand in her own as they went.

“No, Yang, they’ve probably just never seen a girl pick up a full size mattress by herself,” Blake responded with a laugh, giving Yang’s hand a light squeeze at the same time.

Boy, did Blake ever know how to inflate Yang’s ego…

Of course, after having been partners for years, Blake also knew exactly how to bring Yang crashing back down to earth if she ever got too cocky - most of the time in the form of several perfectly timed spin moves and shadow clones that disguised the impending roundhouse kick that would rock her world.

“This one - this one looks like a winner!”

Maybe the root of the problem was that she wasn’t ‘selling’ these good enough.  Maybe she needed to add some allure to the mattresses to make them appear fluffier.

Well, it was worth a shot.  Nothing else seemed to be fluffy enough!

“The…”

Squinting briefly at the tag, Yang read some of the information before moving in front of it with a grand flourish of her free hand, beaming in response to the pleased smile Blake was giving her.

“The Emperor II, Moonlight Plus, all-season mattress!”

(It looked exactly the same as every other mattress they’d looked at, but it was all about the presentation, right?)

Gently drawing Blake to the side of the bed, Yang slowly waved one hand over the quilted surface - palm facing upward like she’d seen on commercials.

“Kindly take in the...uh…”

Craning her neck backwards, she read the next few bullet points from the tag before turning back to her still-grinning girlfriend.

“Take in the three padded layers of ‘Cloud9’ memory foam, the extra special ‘Cooling Gel’ technology, the waterproof stitching -”

With the last selling point, Yang gave Blake a wink, receiving her eye roll and smile in response before continuing with gusto.

“It’s the best of the best - the highest of hi-tech - the fluffiest of the...uh, fluffy,” she proclaimed, smiling when Blake laughed out loud - the sound still music to her ears.  “It even has ‘cloud’ in the name - it must be the fluffy you’re searching for!”

With that, Yang gestured for Blake to give it a try, same as she’d been doing all day.

“Quite the presentation,” Blake commented while taking a single step closer to the bedframe, one hand still clasped firmly within Yang’s.  “You have a second career in the making, I can feel it.”

“Please - you want me to sell beds to people all day long?” Yang replied with a laugh before continuing in her best ‘fake salesman’ voice.  “I understand you’re unsure about this mattress, ma’am, it is a big investment.  Why don’t you go home and sleep on it?”

Blake groaned at the pun, but Yang wasn’t done yet.

“Oh, you suffer from insomnia?  No worries!  With one of our top-of-the-line mattresses, you’ll be having bedder days in no time - or should I say, bedder nights!”

“I’ve changed my mind!” Blake cut in with another laugh (Blake always laughed at Yang’s puns - why else would Yang keep making them?).  “You can’t work here anyway, because then who would be my partner?”

Licking her lips and leaning closer - close enough to watch the dark pupils in Blake’s eyes widen ever so slightly - Yang lowered her voice to nothing more than a whisper.

“Well...I guess you’d have to follow me into the bed...selling business, wouldn’t you?”

Grinning at her attempt at wit, Yang grew serious when she recognized the look in Blake’s eyes, one full of love - love for her.

“Yang, I’d follow you anywhere.”

If anyone knew how to leave her without words, it was Blake.

Never before had she been able to lose herself in someone else’s eyes, but she still found herself doing so with Blake daily.  It was as if those wonderful amber orbs erased the world around her, leaving nothing but the two of them in each other’s embrace.

It was amazing, surreal...and broken as soon as Blake’s eyes flitted to someone or something behind Yang’s left shoulder.

“Hey, maybe we should ask that clerk for a suggestion?”

Without thinking, Yang reached out and snatched the store employee before he could pass - and when she said ‘snatched,’ she meant grabbing the guy by the shirt, lifting him off the ground, and setting him back down directly in front of them.

“We need the fluffiest mattress you have,” she said, ignoring his widened eyes at what she’d just done.  “Like, I mean, fluffier than everything.”

“H-have you tried the...pillow top section?”

Following the direction he pointed in, Yang grinned when she saw the large sign that read simply ‘pillowtop’ on the other side of the store.

“That’s it, Blake!  That’s gotta be it!  The holy grail of fluffy!”

Her feet were already marching quickly that way - pulling a softly giggling Blake along by the hand.  Before they’d moved too far away, she turned back and gestured for the store clerk to follow them, just as the young boy had been about to slip away.

As soon as they were underneath the sign advertising mattresses with pillows on top, Yang pulled Blake to the nearest one and gestured for her to try it out.  Which Blake did - and this time she didn’t immediately pull her hand away - opting instead to let it linger in the air above the mattress as if she might try it out one more time.

“So??” Yang pressed, not having the patience to wait much longer for Blake’s answer.

“Well...that is actually somewhat fluffy…” Blake responded carefully, before pressing her hand into it one more time.

Excitement suddenly exploded through Yang’s veins, the type of excitement she always felt before completing a mission, taking down a large enemy, or accomplishing something she’d thought was going to be impossible.

She could feel it now.  They were on the cusp of something…

“Which one of these is the fluffiest??” she asked the clerk, drawing his full, somewhat nervous attention back to her.

“Like the...thickest pillow top?  Uhh...well that’d be this one…”

She obediently followed the boy several spots over, drawing Blake closely along behind her.

This one actually looked a little bit fluffier than most - with the pillow top being several inches thick on top of a regular mattress.

“Try it out!” Yang said, prodding Blake forward as the clerk made room for her to move past.

It was on bated breath that Yang watched Blake press her hand into the mattress once...twice...three times to test the pressure.  This was already further than any other mattress had made it thus far - putting them in completely uncharted territory.  Yang had no way of knowing what to expect next, so used to the answer ‘not fluffy enough’ had she grown... 

With a brow wrinkled in concentration, Blake painstakingly, almost cautiously, turned around and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“Well?” Yang asked, praying that they’d finally found ‘The One.’

“Hmm…” was all Blake said before scooting further back onto the mattress, her feet lifting off of the showroom floor and doing what had seemed to be the unthinkable just minutes earlier - laying down on the bed.

And then she sighed - one of those long sighs of relief that was almost exclusively reserved for the end of a particularly rough day of Grimm hunting, when they’d finally trekked their way back home, removed their stained combat gear and sunk into a steaming hot bath.

“This is perfect.”

Letting out a loud ‘whoop!’ of satisfaction, Yang turned and gave the salesman an enthusiastic high five, moderately chuckling at the brief flicker of pain that crossed his face from the force she’d put behind it.

(‘Not so hard, you buffoon!’ she could still remember Weiss screeching at her.  ‘Not all of us have bludgeons for hands!’)

Taking two steps, she launched herself from her feet, flying through the air before landing on the mattress with a rather surprising amount of bounce.  Normally when she jumped into bed (which, admittedly, she did a lot), the mattress would hold her body down on the initial landing, but this bed...well, she fully lifted off before settling down for good.

Once settled, she rolled onto her back and wiggled to test the resistance.

“Wow…”

Now she could see what Blake had been talking about.  There was fluffy.  And then there was fluffy.

“You like it?”

Turning onto her side so that she could look at Blake, she grinned at that question.

Man, did she ever like it…

“This is incredible,” she freely admitted.

You’re incredible,” Blake immediately sent back at her, leaning forward to place a quick kiss to her nose.

Taking only a second to bask in their most recent success, Yang quickly lifted her head to find the clerk who still hadn’t managed to slip completely away.

“Can this be delivered?” she asked, halting the boy in his retreat.

“Um, yeah, yes it can be - is that the one you’d like?”

Glancing at Blake and receiving a nod, Yang smiled.

“Definitely,” she answered before flopping back onto the bed beside her girlfriend, content to forget his existence for now. 

****

“Can’t believe they do same-day delivery for free!” she said, voice raised so that it would carry out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where Blake was currently getting dressed for bed.

“Pretty sure he just didn’t want you to come back,” came the teasing response, making Yang laugh while running a brush carefully through her hair.

“Which I would have if they’d been late,” she commented with a self-satisfied grin.  “And then I could’ve given him the handshake of death!”

Holding one hand up in front of her, she curled her fingers into as tight of a fist as she possibly could, hearing a couple of joints and knuckles pop in the process.

Dropping her hand, she went back to her hair - running the brush through it in slow, methodical strokes that wouldn’t snag or pull.  It was only a few minutes later that she was content with how silky her hair felt, so she dropped the brush on the counter and moved towards the bathroom door, flipping off the lights as she walked back into their new, shared bedroom.

“Hey, think Weiss will be mad that we used her credit…”

The question trailed off at the sight in front of her - one very tired Blake Belladonna, curled up and very much passed out upon their new bed.  It was the kind of sight that always made her go ‘awwww….’  Like seeing a kitten at the pet store sleeping in its little hammock bed…

Don’t ever mention that comparison to Blake.  She’d make Yang sleep on the roof in no time…

All the same, it was endearing to see - and marked the success of their day in one single sight.

Carefully climbing into bed beside the sleeping beauty, Yang laid down on her side and took in the rarest of views anyone would ever find.

This was Blake Belladonna - master of shadows, of escapes, of appearing out of nowhere with a kick to the face.  The girl who was impossible to find, impossible to catch...

Slowly reaching out, Yang used one finger to carefully push a strand of stray raven-colored hair behind one delicate ear - grinning when her finger barely grazed the skin there, eliciting a small flick of one feline ear in subconscious acknowledgement.

“Goodnight, Fluffball,” she whispered before leaning forward to place one last kiss to Blake’s forehead, backing away quickly when Blake unexpectedly shifted position.

“I may be sleeping...but I’ll still strangle you…” came the sleepy reply, making Yang let out an unexpected laugh of surprise.

Yang should’ve learned by now that even when Blake was sleeping, she was still awake.

Death threats or not, Blake nonetheless scooted closer, nuzzling into Yang’s collarbone and allowing herself to be wrapped in Yang’s arms.  Rubbing her hands gently up and down Blake’s back before finally settling into place, Yang held Blake tightly as they drifted off to sleep on a brand new mattress that was fluffier than air.

“Love you too, Blake...I love you too.”

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