"No! You're not coming with me!" Eames grabbed his ident card out of the bowl by the door, which drunk him had apparently had enough sense to put where it belonged.
"Sure, whatever you say, master," Arthur said, rolling his eyes. "But I have a job to do, and I'm probably going to do it."
Eames stared at the android in confusion, frozen in his act of trying to flatten his hair. "And what, exactly, is it that you think your job is, pray tell?"
Arthur's head cocked to the side and he looked like he was considering. "I uphold the three laws of robotics. That is my function. I am a robot."
Eames gaped at him. "That's your job. Be a robot."
Arthur frowned, thinking. "Yes."
Eames rolled his eyes. "Oh, my… whatever. Come on, I'm already late."
Arthur followed him to the car, where Eames almost forgot to unlock the passenger door, and Eames fiddled with the dash wires until he overrode the speed cap function. Hopefully Ari was still talking to him when he got there.
"I can download the fastest route, if you need it," Arthur offered, only slightly derisive.
"My phone can do that."
Arthur considered that, recalculating. "Yes, but I offer a more lifelike interaction."
"Oh, goody. No bloody thank you."
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
Ari was waiting for him outside the building, and she beamed at him when he pulled up.
"Sorry, love, I'm so, so sorry," Eames said, cuddling her tight. "Can you forgive me?"
She gave him an exasperated grin as he turned on his most charming smile. "This is not my first Eames rodeo. I should have called you when I landed. You okay? You look like hell."
"I'm alright, rough night. Come on, get in."
She pulled open the passenger door to see Arthur, buckled in and looking at her dismissively.
"Oh! Hello! Sorry, I didn't realize…"
"Arthur, get out, Jesus. You can sit in the back."
Ari looked alarmed. "Oh, no! It's fine, Eames! I'm sorry, Arthur, was it? I can sit in the back. It's no big deal."
"Arthur!" Eames barked.
Arthur raised his eyebrows. "She said it was fine."
"So, Arthur! You're American! Where are you from? How do you know Eames?"
Eames gripped the steering wheel. "Arthur is—"
"I'm a colleague of Eames'," Arthur said smoothly, turning in his seat to address Ariadne, and he smiled kindly at her. And would you look at that. Arthur!Bot was equipped with dimples.
Eames frowned and shook his head. "A colleague? Arthur, you're an android."
Arthur's dimples disappeared as he turned to Eames. "Yes, Mr Eames, I am aware. Self-aware, you might say."
Eames opened his mouth to retort, but Ari broke in with an excited, "Oooh, you are!? Ohmygosh, I've never met a new model android before! Wow, you are so lifelike! I can't even tell!"
Arthur looked a bit smug. "Thank you. I apologize for the clothing. I was not offered any others."
"Eames!" Ariadne frowned at him. "You bought an android, a real android, and you didn't give him clothes?"
"I didn't…! He came with… I didn't buy him! I mean, I did, but I didn't mean to!"
"Mr Eames here has been having some trouble trying to get me returned," Arthur offered, turning large, round, chocolate puppy dog eyes on Ari and Eames bristled.
"Okay, I can't deal with this. You are a sex bot, Arthur, a sex bot. THAT is your function. To pleasure humans sexually. And you suck at it."
Arthur shrugged. "So do you, apparently."
Eames engaged the auto drive so he could rub his temples. The silence from the back seat was deafening.
"Just say it," Eames gritted out.
Ariadne didn't say anything, just burst out with a snort that she'd been holding in, and doubled over with laughter.
Eames sighed. "I hate you."
Arthur was sitting in his armchair and reading his paper when Eames woke up the next morning.
Eames grumbled, reaching for the kettle. "Do you sleep?"
"Mmm, no," Arthur replied without looking up, "but if it makes you uncomfortable, I can pretend."
He'd changed into the plaid shirt and khakis, every button precisely fastened and tucked in neatly, and the trousers perfectly pressed. Eames wasn't even sure he owned an iron. He shook his head to clear away the cobwebs and grabbed the Marmite to make breakfast.
"Do you eat?"
Arthur flipped the page. "I can process small amounts of biological material."
Eames paused, butter knife in hand. "So… do you want some food?"
Arthur looked at him blandly. "I'll specify. I can process between two teaspoons and two tablespoons of biological material in a sitting."
"Ah." Eames refused to blush at that and went back to his toast. "Ariadne up yet?"
"Apparently not," Arthur drawled, still reading. Eames tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling and count to ten.
"So!" he tried again, bringing his toast and tea to the sofa. "What are you going to do today?"
But Arthur stilled at that, his expressive eyebrows furrowing and he tugged lightly at one of his adorably too-large ears. The designers really did know what they were doing when they opted on that feature, Eames decided.
"What… will you be doing?" Arthur asked.
Eames took a large bite of toast. "Ari wanted to visit some museum," he mumbled, then swallowed, brushing crumbs from his lips. "But until then, I'll be looking for a job."
Arthur closed the paper decisively. "I'll look with you."
Eames scoffed. "I think I can find my own job, mate."
Arthur rolled that around in his mouth, then said, "I can find a job too, mate."
Eames couldn't help the chuckle that rolled out of him at Arthur saying 'mate' in his American accent. "You? What are you going to do?"
Arthur lifted a cool eyebrow. "What are you going to do?"
"Not look in the paper, that's for sure." He propped his heel on the coffee table and swallowed his last bite of toast, licking the Marmite from his thumb. Arthur's eyes tracked him. "It's about who you know in this town."
"What's about who you know?" Ari asked, scratching her head and yawning.
Eames put his foot down so she could walk past and curl up on the sofa next to him, putting her feet in his lap. "Nothing, love. Just talking about Robert." He rubbed her feet absently, sipping his tea.
"Hmm," she hummed, eyes closed and fist curled under her cheek. "What's he up to these days?"
"Guess I'll find out when I call him."
Arthur crossed his legs. "We are job hunting today."
Ari opened her eyes and sat up at that, concern on her face. "Oh, no, Eames! Again?"
Eames scowled at Arthur. "It just happened yesterday, and it's fine, Ari. Robert owes me one, I'm just going to call him before we pop over to the museum. It'll get sorted. Do you want some tea?"
"Uh uh," she said, frowning and pulling her feet out of Eames' hands. "I'm getting in the shower and you're calling him Right. Now. You're not going anywhere until you have a job."
"Ari…"
"No!" she called back over her shoulder, closing the door to the guest room behind her. Her muffled voice came through as she yelled, "CALL HIM, EAMES!"
Eames frowned and put his foot back on the coffee table. "Thanks a fucking lot, Arthur."
"No, she's not my wife," Eames replied, shocked. "You sound like my mum. She's my best mate, okay?"
Arthur shrugged, nonplussed. Ari had already left for the museum by herself when Robert hadn't answered his phone and repeat texts were still not marked at read. Eames was folding paper airplanes out of the bills on the coffee table and aiming for the bin in the kitchen, which was technically cleaning up, so it counted.
"She obviously cares for you, she's comfortable with you. I've read her facial responses when she looks at you. It wasn't an unreasonable question, Mr Eames."
Eames pursed his lips. "You don't have to call me Mr Eames."
"Sure, master," Arthur said smoothly.
"God damn… just Eames, okay?"
Arthur shrugged again. "So, if you don't have a job, how will you afford me?"
Eames stilled, then scraped the blunt edge of his nail over the edge of the creases on his current airplane, pressing too hard so the paper was wavy. "I… don't know," he confessed reluctantly. "But the bird on the phone said you were imprinted on me, so they can't re-sell you. Which means they won't take you back. They'll just take something else."
Arthur looked around the flat skeptically. "What else?"
Eames looked at him, sighing through his nose. "I don't know, Arthur. Do you have any extra kidneys we can sell?" He stood, chucking the airplane in the bin on the way to his bedroom.
Arthur followed. "No," he said. "I don't have any kidneys at all. Is that something I should inquire about obtaining extras for you?"
Eames yanked open drawers of his wardrobe and barked a mirthless laugh. "No, that would actually be counterproductive, thanks." He removed his shirt and tossed it in the hamper, well, towards the hamper anyway, and reached for his waistband before he realized Arthur was still standing there. Watching.
"Uh…"
Arthur blinked.
"Jesus, I can't believe I..." Eames muttered to himself, whisking his pants and trackies off, ignoring the android in the doorway. "Not even alive, for fucks sake."
He kicked his underwear off his foot and caught it on the first try, a smug smile on his face as he tossed those toward the hamper too. Then he dressed quickly, his second best trousers and jacket, and a decent button down with a wide collar. It didn't choke him and didn't require a tie, two components of a decent shirt in his book. He could see Arthur in his peripheral vision, arms crossed, watching. Probably judging. He smoothed the shirt over his stomach.
"We can walk towards Robert's building. He's probably there, maybe I can catch him."
Arthur just nodded and leaned against the door frame, his face unreadably neutral. Eames wondered at himself that he found it odd-looking on the robot. He grabbed his ident card and locked up behind him.
They took the shortcut through the park, and there was an ice cream vendor on the way. Eames stopped and ordered a vanilla cone, thumbing a drop of sweat from his temple. If they could roboticize the weather, Eames would be all for it.
Arthur kept pace with him as he strolled down the tree-lined path, a comfortable silence between them. Arthur didn't even look annoyed, for once. His brown eyes tracked everything, and he would sometimes tilt his head, like he was searching his databanks.
"Are you thinking about something?" Eames asked between licks.
"No," Arthur said easily, watching a small girl scamper past them. "Processing."
Eames shook his head and took another bite, which promptly broke the cone, and he had to scramble to keep it from landing on his clothes. Which, of course, was when the little girl ran back across the path in front of them and tripped, scraping her knee.
"Oh, oh, oh," Eames said, squatting down. "Are you alright, love?"
The girl wailed. "Mummy!"
There was a small well of blood on her skin, and when she noticed, her wailing intensified.
Eames, his hands covered in ice cream, looked about for potential mum material, which was when he saw the woman rushing toward them, and the girl reached for her, sobbing.
"She fell," Eames offered and the woman whisked her daughter away, ignoring him and shushing her with pets and kisses.
Eames frowned at his hands, licking the trail of melted ice cream off his knuckles. "Aren't you supposed to, I don't know, sacrifice your body to keep humans from being hurt?"
Arthur looked at him placidly. "I believe you're referring to Asimov's three laws of Robotics. One: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two: a robot must —"
"Yeah," Eames interrupted, frustrated with his cone, "through inaction blah blah. Seems like you could have prevented that one."
Arthur regarded him with his hands in his pockets. "And how far does that extend? Do I have a radius for scraped knees? Should I go out searching for humans in harm?"
Eames frowned at him but Arthur just looked back. "No, but in your sight line should count."
Arthur shrugged. "She's fine."
"Yes, but she was harmed."
"How harmed? When does this kick in, specifically? Does this count for emotional harm too or just physical? Do I have to worry about hurting your feelings, Eames?"
Eames glared in disbelief. "Well, I don't know, you're the one whose job it is to 'be a robot'. Does that matter what kind of harm if it's in your power to stop it?"
Arthur snorted. "In that case, your ice cream was a poor financial decision and is going to go straight to your waistline."
Eames binned the rest of the cone. "Arthur, seriously. What are you good for?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, master, would you like a blowjob?"
"Jesus, Arthur!" Eames said, looking around quickly. "Little ears!"
