They lie in bed together, Gavin's head on his chest and arms around each other in what RK thinks is their usual position now. Gavin's head is approximately one centimeter lower than the previous night, but it's close enough that RK's hands can rest in exactly the same position on Gavin's back.
It always surprises him how precise their positioning is, given the usual fluster around their bed time and Gavin's usual penchant for disorder, not helped by his current inebriated state.
"S'nice," Gavin murmurs, seemingly trying to bury his head deeper in RK's chest, and RK remembers how Gavin had commented, once, on how he found the whirring of his pump and clicking of his internals soothing. He wonders if that contributes to the precise positioning of Gavin's head.
"The party or this?" RK knows the answer, but he can't help but ask anyway.
"The fuk you think?" is the only response he gets, although he can feel Gavin smile against him. He gently rubs Gavin's back as his breathing gradually slows and he starts drifting off to sleep.
RK was still surprised that Gavin had bothered to join him at Hank and Connor's engagement party, which in retrospect wasn't a party as much as Hank and Connor inviting them over for dinner as thanks for RK's part in everything.
Then again, Gavin had simply parked himself on the couch with a six pack, tuning out the chatter from the kitchen, getting up only when the beer was gone and RK felt like he should take his leave anyway and let the happy couple have some time to themselves.
Still, Gavin had gone for RK's sake, and RK reminds himself that, as much as Connor and Gavin may be on polite terms now, they were still far from friends, and Gavin still hated emotion and emotional events, and Gavin was doing something far outside his comfort zone for RK's sake.
"What do you think about marriage?" RK asks, wanting to push that envelope a bit further still. He can feel Gavin startle back to full consciousness.
"What?"
"What do you..."
"Heard you the first time," Gavin says, before falling quiet for a bit. "We've talked about this before."
RK remembers the conversation, which had immediately turned to Gavin's father and been shut down quickly after that. He wants to ask about that too, about Gavin's father and growing up, but he doesn't let it distract him from the discussion at hand.
"Not really. You know what I mean, Gavin."
Gavin makes a frustrated noise against RK's chest, and RK's pretty sure the conversation is done, so it surprises him when Gavin speaks again.
"Don't really give a fuck. We have each other. Why's it matter?"
RK thinks Gavin has a point. It shouldn't, really. Except... "First of all, if you got shot again, and were in the hospital, I would..."
"Yeah, yeah." Gavin cuts him off, then yawns. "Whatever. You want to get hitched, let's get hitched."
It's not a proposal, or even really an answer, but RK feels himself growing emotional at it anyway.
"I presume you would not want a wedding," he says, instead of everything else he wants to say but knows Gavin wouldn't want to handle, even drunk.
Gavin laughs, short and sharp, into RK's chest. "Fukkin' hell. You want me to wear the veil too?"
RK laughs himself at the thought, closing his eyes and feeling Gavin snuggling back against him again. He should let it go, should let Gavin sleep, but...
"Would you want a ring?"
"You gonna ask questions all night?" Gavin says, annoyance in his voice now. "I just want to fuckin' sleep."
"You're right. I'm sorry..." RK begins, his eyes opening and watching Gavin as the man shifts and disentangles his limbs from RK's own. He's expecting Gavin to get up for another drink, or to use the toilet, or because he's annoyed now at RK and the constant interruptions.
Instead, Gavin rolls over, fumbling with the nightstand drawer for a second before he's back against RK's side again. Gavin's hands find his, and an object is clumsily jammed into his hand. No, onto his hand. Onto his finger.
It's a ring.
It's a ring, and it fits perfectly.
RK lifts his hand up, scanning the band of metal as Gavin makes a frustrated noise, trying to find the right spot on RK's chest again. Even in the darkness, RK can see that his ears are red.
The band is plain metal, tungsten carbide, engraved with a single gear pushed up against a typical icon depiction of a heart.
Half you, half me, RK hears in his head.
He has so many things he wants to say, or to ask, but Gavin hums contentedly against his chest, and he pushes all of that out of his mind.
Instead, he just allows the emotion to overtake him, and lets himself just be happy as he feels Gavin drift off to sleep.
"Did you mean this?" RK asks the next morning, causing Gavin to stare at him, shirt half on and bunched up around his shoulders, arms tangled in the fabric.
RK really likes the view.
"Mean what?" Gavin asks, pulling the shirt down the rest of the way with more force than necessary.
RK holds up his hand, the ring glinting in the morning light. "You were drunk last night," he says, needing to explain his question. "I just..."
"I wasn't drunk," Gavin objects, fishing around in the closet for his favorite pair of jeans. RK knows they're draped over one of the dining room chairs, but he isn't going to volunteer that information just yet, lest Gavin finishes getting dressed and spoils the view. "Last night. 'Sides, I got that for you when I was sober. Maybe it would've been better if I was drunk, so I wouldn't've had to listen to Tina giving me all sorts of shit while I was pickin' it out."
That makes sense, and eases RK's concerns a bit, that he'd somehow pressured or coersed a drunken Gavin into proposing to him.
"It fits." RK means the engraving, but he realizes that applies just as well to the sizing. He wonders if Gavin had found information about his specifications online, or consulted with another android.
Gavin shrugs, seemingly giving up on his jeans search and pulling a different pair out of the closet instead. "It should. Connor helped me."
"Connor?!" RK is truly shocked by that one. Gavin just looks at him, a combination of amused and exasperated, as he pulls on the jeans and buttons them, much to RK's disappointment.
"You know've any other RK-series android fingers lyin' around?" Gavin pads off into the living room, and RK follows. "Figured you'd be the same size. Connor confirmed it."
He watches Gavin grab a box of cereal in the kitchen, no longer grumbling about the healthier option RK had started insisting on for breakfast, sitting at the table with it and eating handfulls out of the box. RK retrieves a bowl and spoon from the kitchen instead for it, setting it down in front of Gavin as he messages Connor.
"You knew?"
"Knew what?" RK knows that, if Connor had been standing in front of him right now, he'd be staring at him in confusion.
"Gavin was getting me a ring. Got me a ring."
RK watches as Gavin begrudgingly pours the cereal into the bowl, but ignores the spoon, munching on handfulls as he rifles through some of the files on the table with his other hand.
It's nothing new, but it's still more endearing than it has any right to be.
"Gavin wanted to know what ring size you were," Connor replies, after a longer delay than RK would have expected. "He asked me because he thought we would be the same size. He was correct."
"He could have asked any android. Any android that had scanned either of us even once would know our precise measurements."
"That would have required a level of intellect that Reed does not possess," Connor says, and RK's about to object before he realizes that Gavin had asked Connor, specifically, on purpose. And that knowledge makes his chest feel tighter than it has any reason to.
"I presume congratulations are in order," Connor says after RK doesn't respond.
RK holds his hand up again, staring at the band of metal. Even though he already has an exact record of what it looks like, and knows exactly how the light from the living room windows reflect off of it, there's nothing quite like seeing it again, in real life.
"Someone's vain this morning." RK turns to Gavin, who's looking at him now, a smirk on his face. "You want some more jewelry, princess? Maybe a gold bracelet? Diamond earrings?"
"They are", RK messages back to Connor as he sits down next to Gavin at the table. Gavin smiles at him, softly this time, before returning to the files. "You're really okay with this?"
Connor doesn't respond for a worrying long time.
"I'll never understand how, or why, but you two are good for each other," Connor says, finally. "He's always been there for you, even though I couldn't see it, or misinterpreted it, or didn't believe it for a while."
"He has," RK agrees.
"And you've made him into an almost tolerable human," Connor says, and RK isn't sure how much of that statement is intended to be sarcastic.
"Thank you, brother," RK says, and even though Connor doesn't respond, he knows things really are okay.
RK spends the next few weeks with a hightened baseline of happiness, and Gavin also seems to be in a particularly good mood. Gavin would never admit it, but RK knows he likes the idea of marriage as much as RK does. So a general reluctance to spoil the mood, and maybe a bit of Gavin having rubbed off on him telling him to just roll with things for now, keeps him from bringing up Gavin's father in conversation.
His patience is rewarded unexpectedly one night, as he climbs into bed next to Gavin, who clicks off the light on the nightstand before rolling over and wrapping his arms around RK's torso.
The position is different than usual, with Gavin's face burying itself against RK's side instead, for no reason that RK can discern other than pure chance or randomness. As he struggles to adapt and find an appropriate position for his own arms, he can feel Gavin stiffen against him, and it takes him a moment to understand why.
He immediately pulls his hand from where his fingers had been unintentionally running over Gavin's hip and his tattoo, trying not to pay too much attention to the way Gavin's heart is suddenly pounding against his side.
Myosotis flowers, he thinks, for no good reason. He knows the tattoo. He can conjure up an image of it any time he wants to. Still, his processors insist on devoting an inappropriate amount of time to them now.
"I didn't mean to..." he starts, worried Gavin's going to be angry. "You were just..."
"S'ok," Gavin breathes softly into his side, his voice unusually quiet. The arms around him tighten, and RK allows himself to relax again.
They're quiet for a bit, and RK focuses on the beating of Gavin's heart as it slows back to its usual rhythm. Gavin seems to laugh against his side.
"Ya know, it's kinda fucked we're gonna be, uh... husbands or whatever, and I've never told you about myself."
"You don't have to," RK says, automatically, and surprises himself by how much he means it. Despite his curiosity, he's pretty sure that nothing could change the way he feels about this man, or anything about their relationship, and it's more important to him that Gavin feels like he's respecting Gavin's boundaries and limits.
Despite the space he'd already made for the information in his Gavin folder, the void staring back at him every time he visits it.
Gavin's quiet for a bit, seemingly thinking, and when he speaks, it doesn't start how RK expects.
"My mom was a whore," Gavin says, his voice back to its normal volume and usual confidence, and RK isn't quite sure how to respond to that.
"Literally," Gavin seems to clarify. "My dad was a regular, and one time I guess the condom broke, and... well, I don't know why she kept me, but she dumped me on his doorstep, and then dumped him as a client, so it was just him and me."
RK swallows the urge to ask questions. From how much Gavin has avoided this topic in the past, he's gathered that it's hard for Gavin to talk about, and wants to give him as much space as possible to do it.
"He was, uh. A good dad, I guess. Kept me clothed and fed and all that. But no matter what I did, I was never good enough for him. Like he blamed me for something. Like I was... a burden to him."
RK can definitely understand that feeling, although he feels ashamed now for even thinking it. Hank and Connor had never been anything but good and supportive to him.
"It just made me push myself harder," Gavin continues. "He was... well, I looked up to him, anyway. A single father in a world of couples and single mothers. It was brave. He was brave. I told myself if I just tried harder... did a little better..."
Gavin's voice breaks, and RK shifts so he can kiss reassurance into Gavin's hair. "Stay with me," he says, automatically.
He's about to apologize for it, feeling like that's Gavin's phrase, and the situation now is wholly uncomparable to his own, before he realizes... maybe this is Gavin's programming. The part of himself that Gavin wants to destroy, and move on from, but can't.
"Stay with me," he repeats, instead of the apology, and it seems to work, because Gavin relaxes in his arms.
"Uh. Anyway, I... was valedictorian in high school. Was supposed to give a speech or whatever, and I asked him if he'd be there. He said he was busy, he had to work, whatever. The usual. He couldn't be bothered. But I hoped, anyway. Waited until I was up on that fuckin' stage looking over the fuckin' audience."
Gavin stops speaking, and RK would think it was a poignant pause, or maybe a dramatic one, if Gavin's eyes weren't wet now, damp against his chest.
"He wasn't there," RK fills in for him, somehow knowing that there would be no last-minute change of heart or unexpected surprise for teenage Gavin.
Gavin nods, squeezing his eyes shut. "He wasn't there. I wasn't surprised, of course. Gave my fuckin' speech, drove myself fuckin' home, put myself to fuckin' bed. Next thing I know fuckin' cops are knocking on the fuckin' door."
RK hadn't been expecting that part, his mind already running through the possibilities. Had his father abandoned him?
"What happened?" RK asks, finally, after a while where Gavin doesn't seem like he's going to continue, and immediately feeling guilty for pushing. "You don't have to continue."
"He was gone," Gavin chokes out, and RK feels a brief flash of anger at this man he'd never known, and had never met, for throwing away his son like he himself had been thrown, unwanted, into the junkyard. But he'd never known his makers, and has no real ill will toward them for disposing of him when he was no longer needed.
He had just been a tool to them.
Gavin's father, on the other hand...
"Not... not like that," Gavin says after another while of RK kissing reassurances into his hair. "He, uh..."
Gavin trails off, and RK gets the definitive sense that Gavin has never talked about this before. "You don't have to continue," he repeats, just so Gavin really knows.
"He was coming," Gavin says, eerily calm now, like he's reciting a rehearsed speech. "To graduation. T-boned at an intersection by a truck. Killed on impact. That's what they said, anyway."
"Oh." RK thinks the word is monumentally inappropriate for what he's feeling at the moment, both with what had happened and with how much Gavin is clearly struggling with reliving it, but nothing more appropriate comes to mind.
"Fuck," Gavin says, the emotion back in his voice. "I'm such a fuckin' mess right now."
"It's me," RK says, hoping that conveys enough of what he wants to say. "I'm here."
"They, uh... I had to identify the body. Gave me his stuff. Wallet. Keys. And in the car, he had... flowers."
"Myosotis flowers." RK knows without even having to be told.
"They were his favorite, I guess," Gavin laughs bitterly at that, for some reason. "Never told me why. Never told me anything, really. But he got me some, and some cheap dollar store card. Fucker didn't even bother to write anything in it. 'Twas just the front with some gaudy god-awful 'Congratulations' on it. Wasn't even a graduation card."
Gavin's angry now, and RK knows it's masking the emotion Gavin's struggling with. He rubs circles into his back, letting Gavin work through the anger.
"He never fuckin' said anything," Gavin spits out. "I was never good enough and then I never could be good enough because he was gone. Told myself then that I'd be the best fuckin'... whatever I set out to be, just to spit in his face so he couldn't disapprove anymore. Turns out that ended up being a detective, so." He shrugs against RK. "You know the fuckin' rest."
"You got the tattoo in his honor," RK says, trying to tie it all together.
"I got the tattoo to remind myself that no one really gives a shit about anyone else," Gavin says, but RK can tell he's deflecting again. "In the end the only fucker in this world you can rely on is yourself and the shit you do for yourself. Caring about people, and what people think, just brings you pain."
RK's quiet for a bit as Gavin calms down, struggling with whether he should ask the next question. He does so anyway. "But you don't feel that way anymore?"
Gavin doesn't say anything for a while, but then he shifts, and he's looking up at RK, his eyes red and teary and a soft smile on his face that RK thinks would look wholly out of place on him if it wasn't so beautiful.
"Not anymore."