In which RK900 doesn't understand boundaries and can picks locks, heart attacks are had and the general public are harassed.

It was an undeniable and uncontested truth that Gavin Reed loved his bed. He loved that it was bouncy, that his duvet was a downy cloud of softness and that all he had to do to get in it was to flop face forward two steps in from the door. It was huge, taking up almost all of his room in its king-sized splendour, allowing him to spread out like the crippled starfish he was. If he were the marrying sort, he'd have popped the question a long time ago. As it was, he had maintained a steady and mutually beneficial relationship with it… most of the time.

Last night hadn't been good in the way of sleep. He thought it would be. Gavin had been in a good-ish mood when he had buried himself in blankets and cushions. He even managed to get to sleep within ten minutes, a new record for him. The only problem was, he forgot to take his painkillers.

Actually, wait, no. That wasn't the only problem. There was also the little issue that his subconscious still hadn't cottoned onto the fact he'd been beaten to hell and back, and decided to make him roll over to his front, waking him up with a strangled scream as he jostled both his rib and collarbone. After that, it had been hell on Earth to get back to sleep. He'd only just about managed it by five in the morning, which was why he was currently dead to the world and snoring his ass off in broad daylight.

"…Detective."

Gavin's nose scrunched slightly, he let out another sleepy huff of breath.

"Detective Reed."

His lips smacked dryly together and he shifted his head away from the annoying sound. Did he leave the tv on or something?

"Detective Reed!"

Gavin's eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling. It had eyes.

"GuAGH!"

RK900 moved back, just in time to avoid a collision as Gavin jumped up like he was fitted to a springboard.

"You- I- the hell?!"

"I apologize for waking you detective but it is now one minute past the latest time you specified yesterday."

Gavin stared at him, eyes crazed and mouth silently opening and shutting.

"Are you alri-"

"Get the hell out of my room!" Gavin screamed, brain suddenly catching up with the fact that this wasn't a freaky ass dream, and that, yes, the freaky ass android had indeed broken into his fucking flat.

RK900 processed this, LED flashing yellow, then nodded, straightening his stupid, over-starched coat collar and neatly stepping away and out of the room. Gavin scrunched into himself, hand plastered to his chest, trying to calm his breathing.

Oh gawd. What the fuck? What the fuck?!

As the seconds ticked by, the shock started to melt away, to be replaced with a deep-seated anger.

What. The. Fuck.

Gavin threw off the covers, hissing, and swearing as the violent move caused a tidal wave of pain to sear up his chest. This didn't stop him from ripping open the bedroom door like a hurricane though.

"The hell is your problem, you son of a bitch?!" Gavin hissed, storming right up to RK900's face and violently shoving a finger in the centre of his chest. RK900 didn't even flinch. He just stared down at Gavin, that stupid blank face back up with a vengeance.

"I do not have a problem."

"Yeah, you fuckin' do! Where the hell did you get the idea that you could just break into my fuckin' apartment?!"

"… I did not break anything. I picked the lock. I did not think you would be so opposed."

Gavin somewhat lost control of his verbal faculties at that point. He might have yelled something and he definitely swore. Although it was hard to tell what he was saying between the spluttering hisses and choking growls. It took a minute or so for him to reign in enough control to ask:

"Why the hell did you think I'd be okay with a plastic asshole like you creeping in here uninvited?"

RK900 looked down, LED a deep yellow. "I heard that Connor did so with Lieutenant Anderson. He was not upset by this."

"Yeah? Well, they're friends! We're not! Don't you fucking dare do that ever again!"

There was a long silence. RK900 stared unblinkingly down at Gavin, not speaking, not doing anything. Gavin, pulled back his finger from his chest, heavy glare fading into a lighter, more uncertain glare.

"…Of course, detective Reed. I apologize."

Gavin glowered some more, but his heart wasn't really in it now. He just felt tired. He rubbed at his face and sighed, stepping out of the Android's personal bubble.

"Whatever. Just, yeah. Wait next time," he turned around and slouched back to his room.

"Am I- is it acceptable if I remain here?"

Gavin stopped walking. That was the first time he'd ever heard the android trip over his words.

"…You'll just be back later. Let's get this over with," Gavin sighed. "Anyway, I've got shit to do and you owe me for scaring the crap out of me like that."

"Of course, detective. I am more than happy to assist in any way," came a more assured version of the android's voice. Gavin sneered and mimicked that stupid tone under his voice.

"'Of course, detective.' 'More than happy'"

What a load of shit.

RK900 was a creepy little shithead, but Gavin could hand it to him: he could really drive.

Not.

"Woah, slow down, I think that Granny just overtook us!" Gavin exclaimed, waving his right hand in mock urgency. He wasn't in the best of moods from both this morning and from the fact RK900 hadn't let him drive, pickpocketing his keys and coldheartedly explaining there was a 90% chance of a critical crash if he drove. Bad moods and Gavin were not a good mix, often bringing the sarcasm out to play.

RK900 glanced around for said Granny then threw Gavin a soft frown. "You are lying; there is no elderly woman driving near us."

"No. She left us in the dust ages ago," Gavin snarked, rolling his eyes again when RK900 just frowned at him. "It was a joke. Like sarcasm? Ringing any bells?"

"I know what sarcasm is. I simply did not find your statement amusing," RK900 retorted, looking back at the road as it crawled past them.

"… Lesson two's gotta be getting you a sense of humour then," Gavin said, turning his head to stare out the car window.

"You said you would teach me how to smile today, Detective Reed."

"Oh, yeah," Gavin had forgotten about that. He turned back to give RK900 an assessing look. "Okay then, hit me with your best."

RK900 didn't immediately respond, he waited until they reached a red traffic light before turning in the driver's seat and flashing Gavin a smile.

"Eugh. Okay. No. Not unless you're trying to scare someone."

"What is wrong with it? The definition of a smile dictates that the corners of the mouth are tilted up and teeth are exposed."

"Not all of them. You look like a shark, but wrong."

RK900 thought about this, then tried again.

And Gavin burst out laughing, holding his chest like a lifeline. "Ow! Haha. Ow! Not- not just your front teeth you- hah- you idiot."

RK900 started driving again, pointedly not looking at Gavin as the man ugly-laughed his arse off.

"There was a problem with that?"

"You looked like a fucking bunny rabbit. RK900 the android rabbit! Hah!"

RK900 did not respond to this, instead neatly pulling the car into a free parking space in one fluid movement.

Huh, maybe if Gavin could get him to speed up a bit he wouldn't be a half bad driver. He turned around to say as much (with a few withering insults mixed in to make sure he came off as matter of fact and not 'nice'), only to stop short as he saw what RK900 was doing. He was staring at Gavin's lips, at the frozen smile there, and smiling back. It was better than the last two attempts that was for sure, but it still looked wrong somehow. Like he looked as if he was glaring and grinning at the same ti- Hold the phone.

"Are you fuckin' mimicking my smile?"

"Is it working?"

"No. Don't copy me. It's weird."

The smile snapped off and RK900 let out a soft huff of irritation. "Then what do you propose?"

"I 'propose' we get out of the car, I get on with my stuff and you- yeah, you do that copying crap. Just not on me."

RK900 blinked and tilted his head. Gavin sighed and struggled out of the car, waving at RK900 to follow him.

"Look it's not hard, just sit on a bench somewhere and people watch. Don't be obvious about it though. Quick looks, or they'll realise you're a freak."

"Where will you be?" Asked said freak.

"Mind your own business, that's where."

Another frown. Gavin ignored it.

"I'll see you at that café over there in an hour. You're buying lunch."

"You do not need any assistance?"

Yeah, truth be told, Gavin needed assistance. He was having to buy a ton of easy open cat food since he couldn't open the canned stuff anymore, and he was going to have to stock up on a lot of easy instant meals. He was also going to need help reaching the shelves, packing everything and carrying all the bags. Gavin needed a lot of things. But like hell was he going to admit it.

"Aww, how sweet. No. Now fuck off."

And with that, Gavin turned on his heal and stormed away.

A cold, sickly sweat prickled at Gavin skin as he swagger-staggered into the coffee shop over an hour and a half later. He did his best to look casual, even with a ton of plastic bags hanging off his cast and a distinctly sallow look to his face.

Thank fuck RK900 had got him a table near the front. If it were just him, he'd probably have taken one look at the crowded tables he'd have to weave through and have just left. And Gavin didn't want to leave. He wanted coffee. With the intensity of a rocket targeting device in dire need of caffeine, his eyes latched on to RK900 who was sat with a sandwich and a cooling cup of black ambrosia right in front of him.

"Thank god," said Gavin, dropping his bags with a crash and grabbing the cup without even a how-de-do.

"Hello Detective Reed, did your tasks go well?" Asked RK900, his usually robotic voice ever so slightly higher pitched than usual. Gavin ignored this and the question in favour of gulping down as much coffee as humanly possible in the smallest time frame possible.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin caught RK900 tilting his head to the side, glancing down at the overspilling shopping bags. Gavin didn't care at that moment. He was still drinking the coffee, sat down in the chair now, legs spread out and back heavily slumped. RK900 stared from across the small table, straight-backed, perfectly groomed and with his hands clasped neatly in his lap, looking as different from Gavin as night and day.

RK900 cleared his throat. He didn't need to but had most likely seen humans do it as a way of getting people's attention. It didn't work on Gavin who continued to ignore him, so he opened his mouth and spoke.

"If you are having difficulty opening the cans of cat food, I am more than happy to assist."

Gavin paused and put down the half-empty cup, wiping his mouth with the back of his cast. He looked at RK900, eyes narrowed consideringly.

"I could also assist you in preparing more nutritious meals for yourself."

The look of consideration faded.

"I'm fine," lied Gavin.

Gavin Reed wasn't fine. His head ached, his wrist hurt and his chest was burning from when some old bat barged into his left side at the supermarket and knocked him to the ground. Really, he should've ordered all that stuff online but it was hard to tell if everything would be usable with only one hand. Much easier in person. Also, he wanted to get out of the flat before his hobo beard grew too big for him to be seen in public.

RK900 was staring at him, eyes roaming over his grimy face as if looking for a tell. Time for a distraction.

"So, how'd the smile searching go?" Gavin asked, fumbling one-handedly with the sandwich box.

Distraction success! RK900 stopped searching Gavin's face and looked down at his lap.

"I stored over sixty variations of a smile in my memory banks," he clipped out. "However, several humans did not seem to appreciate my staring, even though I did as you said and didn't consecutively stare at them."

Gavin, who was starting to gain a better understanding of RK900's rather literal personality, gave him a deadpan look. "Sure. Show me then; how'd you watch them?"

RK900 straightened up his already pretty straight posture and glanced around the room… then around again, and again.

"You're moving your head like a security camera," said Gavin disbelievingly. "Why are you moving your head like a security camera? You don't do that normally."

RK900 made to answer but Gavin held up his hand, not that interested in hearing whatever stupid reason the droid was going to give.

"Look, just watch me," Gavin said before leaning back, scratching the back of his nose, and staring into space.

"There is no one where you are staring."

"Give it a mo," he said, before glancing around as someone got up from the chair, only for a moment before looking away. "Eyes are drawn to movement and sound, add in a bored expression and a body-slump, and bingo, you've got yourself a low-key surveillance mode."

Gavin gave a fake sigh and looked elsewhere, only to pause as he noticed someone looking back.

"…Why have you stopped using your reaction method?" Asked RK900, breaking Gavin's concentration and making him glance away from the woman who'd met his gaze.

"Uh, someone was looking at me," Gavin muttered, scratching at the back of his neck.

RK900 looked around at where the woman who had stared at him was sat. Gavin followed his gaze. She was blond and tall, with glasses falling down the bridge of her nose and an electronic book in her hand. Not Gavin's usual type, but certainly very pretty. If he wasn't so banged up and in the company of a socially inept android, Gavin might have tried his luck. As it was, he really wasn't interested. Besides, she must've been into weird shit to be checking him out when he looked so rough. Gavin looked away and non-so-gently kicked RK900 under the table.

"Stop staring idiot, she's going to think we're talking about her."

"But we are," RK900 pointed out before following Gavin's order nonetheless.

Gavin's answer to that was putting his forehead in his hand.

"Ow," he hissed, pulling it back. Yeah, he'd done too much with that wrist today. Hell if he knew how he was going to get those bags back to his car. (And no he wasn't asking RK900 for help.) He shook off this thought and focused on the present; the embarrassing present. "Look, she was just checking me out. See, in a few moments she's gonna look up again. Do the staring into space thing and you'll see."

RK900 slouched his back ever so slightly and angled his chair towards the woman as he mimicked Gavin's movements.

Fast learner, Gavin thought, picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. Chicken and avocado huh? Not a bad choice. Gavin vaguely wondered how RK900 knew he'd like that before suddenly jamming the breaks on that thought, deciding that he didn't want to know and wasn't ever going to ask.

"You are correct," Gavin heard RK900 say after a few minutes of Gavin's semi-silent munching. "...Why is she doing that?"

Gavin stopped chewing and stared into space…No. Nope. No way in hell was Gavin explaining this. If he started talking about flirting RK900 would try to get him to teach that too and that was a step too far in Gavin's books. Also, teaching him how to act friendly was one thing, but he was notgoing to teach the android how to dupe someone into a fake relationship for fuck's sake.

Why the hell was he doing this again? …Oh yeah. It saved his ass- he saved his ass, of his own slightly bored free will…

"Doesn't matter," he softly muttered in answer to Nines's question, before cramming a large bite of his sandwich in his mouth. "You gonna show me those smiles or what?"

RK900's eyes twitched at Gavin's show of manners, his focus entirely centred on the arc of the fragment of mashed up bread and chicken that had jettisoned from Gavin's mouth to land on the edge of the table.

"Nah, that's not a smile. That's like a grimace," said Gavin, still talking with his mouth full and stuffing even more of his food in. RK900 held the expression for a few more seconds before slowly starting to cycle through the collection of smiles he'd seen.

"Nah," was Gavin's eloquent response to the first two.

"No," he said to the third and sixth.

The fourth and eighth got a resounding: "God no."

Gavin almost laughed at the fourteenth. "That's fuckin' terrifying, did you get that from a kid or something?"

It was the eighteenth that proved to be a winner. A closed-lipped smile, with a faint dimple forming on his right cheek. Apparently he got it from an old woman sitting on a bench and staring up at the sky. Only RK900 wasn't staring at the sky. He was staring at Gavin.

"Eh, that one's okay," said Gavin, looking away quickly and clearing his throat. "You keep working on it."

Next lesson: Names