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“Aigis, why don’t you sleep in bed with me?”
Aigis blinks for a beat, then furrows her brow. Was the answer not obvious?
“Would that not disrupt your sleep?”
“I’ve slept with other people before!”
“Ah, no, I mean…” Aigis’s gaze drops to the floor, then to the black tips of her feet. Her eyes just barely begin to trace up the seam of her leg as Minako giggles, and suddenly she isn’t half as concerned with lamenting the body with which she was created.
“Why would I be worried about that?” Minako asks like it’s ridiculous, but not in such a mean-spirited way that it hurts Aigis. It’s too clearly fond. “We’ve cuddled!”
“That’s true, but when it comes to sleeping…I merely do not want you to experience discomfort when you wake up.”
“I’ve slept on the floor without any blankets before and that was fine!” Minako taps an index finger to her chin and resumes her thoughts. “And I used to nap in the dryer sometimes!”
Aigis visualizes Minako, grinning lopsided, shoving her limbs through the door, curling in on herself to accommodate for the dryer’s shape and miraculously drifting off to slumber. It’s all too easy to picture. She smiles affectionately down at her.
“Why?”
“Dunno!” Minako shrugs. “But it was kinda fun, so I kept doing it.”
They share soft laughter for a few seconds. When it fades, Aigis starts to feel silly. Truly, it’s not that she doesn’t want to. It’s one of those little desires she’s caught herself daydreaming about. Yet it’s something that still feels out of reach for her body, and so it remains a conflict.
She can’t help wondering if Minako is falling into her tendency to put aside her own comfort, her own feelings when it means making another person happy. It’s been a trial to fully understand how this side of her works, and there are days where Aigis still can’t tell what is and isn’t a mask. It’s never going to stop her, though. She would commit every change in the other girl’s face to memory, down to the slightest twinge if she had to. Even if by the end of their time together, she still doesn’t understand.
“…Is that what you want?”
“Is it so crazy for me to wanna snuggle up to my girlfriend while I’m sleeping?” Minako’s hand reaches out. She’s not far enough to the edge to grab Aigis’s hand where it rests at her side, so she makes a sort of pitiful grabbing motion as a request instead. Aigis complies. The warmth calms while Minako mulls over what to say for another moment or two.
“Yukari told me you stopped sleeping in your room after we came back,” Minako confesses, her face sincere. “You like sleeping, don’t you, Aigis? Koro-chan used to have to wake you up, so you can’t tell me you didn’t.”
“I…” Aigis hesitates. She squeezes Minako’s hand with a learned gentleness. “It is not important enough for me to abandon your side.”
“You could always invite me to sleep in your room instead, hehe,” She punctuates with a wink. Aigis’s face flushes.
“Th-that would not be comfortable for you either…” Minako only revels in the cute reaction for a moment or two before going back to being serious.
“…I get it,” She holds onto Aigis with both hands, now, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into the back of her hand. “After everything that happened, especially. I understand it if you don’t wanna go to your own room right now, but can you at least try and sleep in bed with me just for tonight?”
Aigis averts her eyes.
“…Will you tell me if you are uncomfortable?”
“You don’t have to worry about that!” Aigis stares ahead, putting on her best unamused expression. Minako simply has to concede to that, if only to commend the effort on Aigis’s behalf of making it convincing. “Buuut, if by some random chance I am , I will. Promise.”
When Aigis finally relents, Minako’s physical giddiness is hard to ignore. She scoots to make space, rapidly patting the spot next to her for Aigis to lay.
Aigis hasn’t laid in a bed before. Her only prior experience was the futons during the Kyoto trip. She can get into it just fine, but she lays stiff as a board. Aside from the pillows, the surface is flat. There’s nothing to guide her limb placement like the chair in her room. Anxiety bubbles within when Minako scoots closer. She starts to lay down, then perks back up.
“You wanna be big spoon or little spoon?”
Aigis’s eyebrows knit together.
“…Elaborate?”
“Like, cuddling. Basically want me to hold you, or you wanna hold me?”
“Oh. I would like to hold you.” Minako’s shoulders rise, her smile bright. Aigis often wonders how she’s tired enough to sleep with all of this energy she expresses before laying down.
“So, lay on your side like this?” Minako demonstrates, her back facing Aigis, so she has to keep craning her neck to look over her shoulder and check on her. Aigis pushes herself onto her side, and finds that her initial stiff position laying down is inconvenient sideways.
“Here, here,” Aigis stills her movements as Minako reaches back to guide her arms forward. Once they’re wrapped snugly around the girl’s torso, she lets them go, and Aigis can’t will herself to move as the other girl settles into her front. “There we go!!”
Pleasant heat washes over Aigis, and she finds herself wondering why she ever fought back so hard against the request when Minako breathes a content sigh, settling into her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“All good back there?”
“Y-yes…”
“Promise?”
“I…am mostly content, but. With this position…Uhm, I would like to see your face, if possible.”
It comes out so timid. Minako’s body shakes some, a quiet laugh leaving.
“Ahh, I should’ve figured you wouldn’t want me facing away. Mmmkay,” Aigis’s free arm drifts apart so that Minako’s wriggling around to face her isn’t as much of an ordeal. Aigis is truly at ease when they’re able to settle again, and Minako peers up at her with nothing short of joy in her eyes. The proximity lowers her voice to a whisper. “How’s this?”
Aigis follows suit in decreasing her own volume. “Perfect, one might say.”
Minako’s limbs tangle around her as if she paid no mind to the chassis her sleep-heavy body would surely sink against in the passing hours of the night. She clings on snugly, burying her face against Aigis’s chest, where beneath the panels the soft blue glow of her heart flickers.
“Mmmh,” Minako hums against synthetic white, and Aigis feels her body tingle pleasantly. “You’re so warm, Aigis…”
Yes. She’s warm. And Minako’s touch, her form interlaced with Aigis’s, she recognizes it as far more than data, and although her body has behaved this way more and more since she came to understand her feelings, somehow it is overwhelming her again in this moment. She mustn’t forget the gifts which her time here has granted her. And she is grateful for Minako’s reminders.
“So are you,” Aigis’s arms draw her that much closer, all pretense of worry melting away. Her fingers find the back of Minako’s head and comb through loosened brown strands. She feels selfish, but Minako wants her to, she knows. There does not have to be this guilt in her desire for the contact Minako so often shows her affection for others through.
“See? This is nice,” Minako says against Aigis through the quiet blanketing them. “I don’t want you to have to worry so hard about this stuff.”
“I do not think that is doable for me,” Aigis admits. “We have changed, together. But there are parts of me that remain unchanged.”
“That’s okay,” Minako’s face tilts up, and she plants a lazy kiss to the android’s chin. It’s like the comfortable heat is draining away her consciousness slowly, but surely. “Then, just let me help you not to worry when I can.”
Aigis mirrors the contact with a gentle kiss of her own, planted atop Minako’s nose while her face was still lifted. “So long as you allow me to express the same sentiment.”
And they sleep, and it’s okay. And Aigis can watch over her in this intimate way that she thought unavailable to her. And Aigis worries again in the morning when Minako groans as they force themselves to untangle. And Minako lets her know that nothing went wrong in the night, and Aigis is comfortable to curl up with no matter what her body is made of.
And the worries melt away again the next night, and the next night, and the worries stop needing to melt because they’re no longer misplaced the night after that.
Aigis still doesn’t sleep in her room. She sleeps in Minako’s bed and holds her each night and dreams about the things they will do tomorrow, and what they will see the day after.