I, Castiel: SPN, PG-13, 2/?
Jul. 30th, 2010 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daymarketTitle: I, Castiel
Author: daymarket
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Notes: AU robot!fic. This fic will probably have 3 or 4 parts. Ish. Maybe.
Summary: Dean takes his first steps into the 22nd century with his very own P.A.L., the most sophisticated robot on the market. One programming muddle later, he finds himself stuck with a contrary, stiff robot who doesn't quite know how to act human.
Chapter 1
x
If Dean had programmed Castiel the conventional way, he would already know everything that was worth knowing. As it was, Dean had to do it the hard way; a.k.a. actually talking and interacting. To quote Sam, it completely undermined the point of a robotic companion in the first place, but hey: at least it wasn’t boring.
So: Five Things Dean Learned About Castiel.
1. Castiel had no tact whatsoever.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t need to sleep,” Dean said as he pulled back at the rumpled blankets of his bed. Castiel had trailed him to the door of the bedroom and stood watching him stiffly. “Do you guys shut down for the night, to save power?”
“Will we be having sexual relations?” Castiel asked. Dean froze mid-pull and tried to ignore the churning in his stomach that the sentence produced. “I have an extensive range of sexual positions and can perform anal, oral—”
“No!” Dean sputtered, cutting off the horrifying list. “No sex! Just sleep!”
“Very well, then,” Castiel said, and Dean swore that there was a definite note of disapproval in his voice. “I’ll be outside if you change your mind.”
He closed the door behind him as he left. Dean leaned against the bedpost and breathed deeply for a few minutes, trying to erase the (to be honest, not entirely unappealing) images in his brain. As he slid under the blankets, he was determined not to think about anal sex, oral sex, Castiel giving any kind of sex, or in fact, sex ever again.
2. Two words not in Castiel’s dictionary: personal space.
His alarm rang around nine in the morning. Dean grunted and flapped an arm around his bedstand, but it shut off before he got there. Dean opened his eyes in confusion to see Castiel’s face right in front of him. He yelped and jumped back. “Jesus, Cas!”
“Good morning,” Castiel said, apparently oblivious.
Dean stared at the bot: Castiel was sitting in a chair next to the bed, his hands folded neatly in his lap and his head tilted to one side. “What the hell? Were you there all night?”
Castiel shook his head. “Only after your sleeping patterns stabilized,” he said finally. “When I determined that you were asleep, I decided it would be appropriate to enter.”
“Okay, ground rules: until I wake up, stay out of my room, okay? My room, my personal space. Your room, your…you don’t have a room. Right.”
“I am meant to be your personal companion,” Castiel said severely.
“Not while you’re in my face,” Dean said illogically. Castiel looked more disapproving than ever, but he did back off.
“I’ll go prepare breakfast,” Castiel announced, leaving the room with a definite huff in his step.
3. Awkwardly enough, Castiel tended to take things just a tiny bit too literally.
Dean was in the other room when he heard the phone ring, and Castiel was the one who picked it up. “Hello, Dean Winchester’s house,” he said, which made Dean wince all by itself.
There was a muffled sound from the other end of the phone. Then, Castiel said, “Why should I buy your toothpaste?” Pause. “I do not approve of this secret ingredient. Blindingly white teeth could be hazardous to other people’s vision. In addition, how can teeth be transformed into diamonds?”
Dean grinned to himself as Castiel meticulously dissected the telemarketer’s pitch word by word. He never could figure out how to stop them from calling, but maybe this would warn them off his number in the future.
(He wasn’t grinning so much when Castiel turned the same analysis on during dinner and picked apart a riveting tale Dean was telling involving several cranes and a very flustered Bobby. But that’s another story.)
4. Castiel was very self-aware of his status as a robot.
He wasn’t ashamed of Cas; plenty of people owned bots and took them out in social contexts. It was just that Dean was fantastically busy with his job, and it was almost a week before he could take a step back, breathe, and incidentally bring Cas to the Roadhouse.
Some bars, especially more fanatically religious ones who thought that bots were the creations of the devil, refused to serve robots. Fortunately, Ellen wasn’t one of them, although her expression was skeptical when Dean came in with Castiel in tow. “I thought you weren’t into the techno craze,” she commented as she wiped a glass clean. “Isn’t that more your brother’s arena?”
“Yeah, well, I’m joining the modern world. Oh, this is Castiel,” he added. “Castiel, this is Ellen, the owner of this fine establishment and one of the toughest ladies I’ve ever known.”
“Huh,” Ellen said. “Looks like one of those reedy, nerdy types.”
“Why does everyone say that?” Dean said. “I didn’t pick the body profile, Sam did.”
“Your brother was here for a party not long ago,” Ellen commented. “Saw him with a woman—blond hair, tall. You know her?”
Dean frowned. “You mean Ruby? I didn’t know he sent in for another redesign.”
“No, not Ruby—I saw her, too. I think Sam’s dating a fellow lawyer,” Ellen said. “A proper human woman, you know?”
“Oh,” Dean said, impressed. “Wow. Little Sam, all grown up.”
“It is not appropriate to date a robot,” Castiel added. Ellen looked at him in mild surprise. “In order to have a truly meaningful relationship, both parties must have free will.”
Ellen raised an eyebrow. “Free will? That’s a lofty idea for a robot.”
“Not at all,” Castiel said. “I understand it precisely because I don’t have it.”
“You mean from a theoretical point of view,” Dean said slowly. “Don’t all bots have the Three Laws or something? You know, you have to—what is it, thou shalt not kill? Or what?”
“I think you’re confusing robotics with the Bible,” Ellen said dryly. “Look the Laws up, Dean; you don’t want to break your bot before you get good use out of him. So, what can I get you?”
5. Everything aside, Castiel had one hell of a metabolism.
“I think I’m starting to feel something,” Castiel said calmly after his sixth shot in a row. Dean shared a glance with Ellen, who grinned.
“Sam knew what he was doing when he set the physical parameters,” Ellen observed. “I’ve seen Ruby drink; two shots in and her joints start locking up. Good thing, since Sam’s pretty lightweight himself.”
“So, how about a free beer to celebrate you burning a hole in my wallet?” Dean suggested, pretty slyly if he thought. Ellen rolled her eyes at him but tossed him a can of Guinness anyway. Opening it, Dean toasted Castiel, who looked back at him impassively. “Glad to know you can hold it, man,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Five’s my limit, and I can’t take them all at once, either.”
“Of course I can hold it,” Castiel said. “After all—I’m not alive, am I?”
X
Saturday morning. Dean woke up with a splitting hangover and a sour taste in his mouth. Castiel was a firm believer in the idea that sugar rotted your soul, apparently, but the hot black coffee did help clear Dean’s head a bit.
Castiel was curled up with a copy of Cat’s Cradle; he offered to stop reading and clean the house instead, but Dean turned the offer down. Castiel deserved a few quiet moments to himself, and Dean wanted to look up the Laws that Ellen had mentioned.
With that goal in mind, Dean typed “programmable artificial life” into the search engine. Interestingly, the first result that came up in the autocomplete tool was “programmable artificial life sex,” which just about proved the theory that yeah, the internet was for porn. With a wry grin, Dean made a mental note to come back later—not because he wanted to have sex with Castiel, of course, but just to know what the hell the appeal was. Instead, he forged onward to the encyclopedia article and settled down for some dry reading:
“The Three Laws of Robotics, as conceived by Isaac Asimov:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
There was a lot of other technical information about the different versions of the laws, so on and so forth, but Dean gathered that the main point was that every robot had to be programmed with the three core laws, period. While people were still arguing over what exactly such a tricky concept as “free will” was, the general consensus was, yeah, robots had no free will.
As it usually went with the Internet, one page led to another, and before he knew it, Dean was reading about robotic purges in frenzied religious communities and how the leader of some church had called for a boycott of all robots as they were soulless, which even Dean knew was a damned stupid thing. He wasn’t really a fan of personal bots, sure, but if they got rid of all of them, humanity would drop right back into the Stone Age.
Or not the Stone Age, but pretty close. Anyway.
He read about nothing in particular for almost three hours, until the rumbling of his stomach reminded him that it was time to eat. He didn’t usually eat lunch on weekdays, preferring to save stomach space for his weekend feasts. And yeah, now that Castiel was cooking, they really were feasts—the bot’s cheeseburgers were something to die for.
The phone rang as he stood to leave, and Dean picked it up with a quick glance at the called ID. “Yeah, Sam,” he said in greeting.
“Hey,” Sam said. “Dean, is okay if I bring another person to dinner tonight?”
Dean paused. Oh, crap. “Dinner?” he said with an awkward grin. “Tonight?”
Silence from the other end of the phone. Then: “…you forgot, didn’t you.”
“No! Of course not,” Dean said. “It just, uh, slipped my mind. Uh, when was it again? Six?”
“Seven,” Sam corrected.
“Right, right. Well, bring all the people you want.” Dean grinned before asking, “This new person wouldn’t happen to be the law firm chick, would it?”
“How did you know?” Sam said, sounding adorably flustered. “Did the guys from work or—oh. Ellen?”
“Hey, you can’t keep secrets like this for long, man,” Dean chided, sliding back into his seat. “So, are you guys steady?”
“Pretty steady, yeah. Her name’s Jess, and I guess it might be a bit too early to say this, but I think she’s the one, Dean.”
“Aww, isn’t that romantic. Little Sammy falling in love.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, sounding embarrassed but pleased.
“Well, okay. I want to meet mystery Jess anyway, you know, give her the big brother warning—”
“Christ, Dean, I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“Quit whining, Sam. I’ll see you at seven. Castiel’s cooking, so you don’t have to worry about food poisoning this time.”
“Castiel? Oh, right, your robot. So how’s the bot working out for you?” Sam asked.
Dean glanced in the direction of the kitchen, where delicious smells were wafting out, and gave a shrug. “Pretty good, I guess,” he said. “He’s a decent cook.”
“And a good lay?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “What is it with robots and porn? Get your head out of the gutter, Sam, I haven’t touched him.”
Sam sounded genuinely confused. “Really? I mean, not at all?”
Dean paused. “Why would I?”
“It’s kind of going to waste, isn’t it? Buying a fancy expensive bot just to cook and clean? You could get a standard kitchenmaid bot for that.”
“He does other things,” Dean protested. “My laundry, for instance.”
“Well, if that’s your style, I guess I can’t say otherwise,” Sam said doubtfully.
Dean shrugged. “I guess I’m doomed to only sleep with real people forever. I don’t know, Sam, sleeping with a bot is just weird.”
“They feel the same,” Sam pointed out.
Dean winced. “God, don’t get into your wild monkey escapades with Ruby, please. Not interested.”
“Well, I’m just saying, Dean! People don’t buy personal bots to do their paperwork. There’s a reason for the realistic figure, that’s all.”
“I’m doomed to die a Luddite,” Dean said. “I don’t know, man, it’s just not my idea of fun.”
“Right,” Sam said. “Well, I guess my own personal bot days are going to be over soon. Jess is awesome, I mean, she’s really…”
“God, you’re such a sap when you’re in love. Shut up, and I’ll see you seven.”
Sam laughed. “Try not to scare her off.”
“I’ll try my best,” Dean said sarcastically. Sam laughed and hung up.
Dean shook his head and put the phone back on its hook. “Hey, Cas?” he yelled.
Castiel appeared in the doorway, hands in the ridiculous frilly apron Dean had purchased for him (he looked good in pink, who knew?). “Yes?” Castiel said. “Lunch will be ready in half an hour.”
“Right. Well, Sam’s coming for dinner tonight. So’s Jess and Ruby, I think. Do we have enough food in the refrigerator?”
Castiel considered it. “If everybody eats sparingly, then yes.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Dean said. “I’m going to head out to the grocery later; you want to come?”
Castiel gave him a look that clearly said, Don’t ask stupid questions. “Of course,” he said.
“Okay, then,” Dean said. “You know, for a personal bot, you sure glare a lot.”
“I am not programmed for a coy personality,” Castiel said, a touch testily. Dean had to laugh—yeah, coy was definitely not in Cas’ dictionary.
“Right,” Dean said, following Cas to the kitchen. “So, Cas, I was thinking. I did some research on the Laws earlier.”
“And?” Cas asked.
“You have to obey any order a human gives you, right? Even if it’s something really stupid?”
“According to the Second Law, yes, but not if it violates the First Law.”
“So how does that work? Is it a compulsion, like—you try to do it, but you can’t? Could you fight a command?”
Cas looked up with the stove with a small frown. “As a personal bot, your orders take priority over all others.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
Cas set down the pan. “What answer are you looking for?”
Dean shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just that you don’t seem very obedient.” He grinned. “More like, contrary and stiff as a board. Not that I mind terribly, but I thought the Laws dominated everything.”
“They do,” Castiel said. “I have never violated a direct order.”
Dean processed this for a moment. A slow grin spread over his face as Castiel gazed back at him calmly, the only sign of upset a slight furrow in between his eyebrows. “A direct order,” Dean said. “But we humans don’t often give direct orders, do we? We exaggerate, we assume, we’re sarcastic as hell.”
Castiel inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. “But that’s your programming fault, not mine,” Castiel said dryly.
“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch, aren’t you,” Dean said.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Castiel said. His eyes narrowing in concentration, he carefully eased the pork chops out of the pan and onto the plate. “Minus the son part, as I was manufactured in a factory. But other than that, yes.”
“Mmm,” Dean said, reaching a hand out to snag one. Castiel smacked him lightly with the spatula and frowned reprovingly. “Hey! What happened to the whole ‘don’t hurt humans’ bit?”
“You are hardly injured, Dean,” Castiel said.
“True, but I could be,” Dean said. “What if it had hit, I don’t know, on a bruise or something?”
“But it didn’t,” Castiel said. “You ask a lot about robotics, but fundamentally it boils down to this: the Laws are words, and words are to be obeyed exactly as they are. No more, no less. There is no place for conjecture in robotics.”
Dean mulled this over. “But there are different versions of the laws, aren’t they?”
“Perhaps,” Castiel said, “but that is a human concern.”
Dean whistled. “So you guys can argue your way out of something, as long as you’ve fulfilled the letter of the Laws exactly.”
“We don’t argue,” Castiel said.
“Right, because you don’t have free will,” Dean said. “You know, so many churches have sticks up their asses over this point. I read this article on the Net about a mass destruction of personal bots somewhere in Kentucky.”
“And you?” Castiel asked as he carried the plate out to the dining room table.
“And me what?”
“Do you have a stick up your ass over this?” Castiel said. As Dean continued to stare in confusion, Castiel gestured to himself. “You stated that this wasn’t your choice,” Castiel said. “Does that statement still hold to be true?”
“I mean, I never thought I’d need a personal bot,” Dean said. “You know, bachelor living on his own, if he doesn’t pick up his own socks then obviously there’s a bit of a problem.” Dean shrugged. “But I mean, I work with bots all the time out at the construction yard. Granted, they don’t look as you do, but they’re still AI.”
“That’s not answering the question,” Castiel said.
“Well, you know humans, we’re full of evasion and bullshit,” Dean said with a half-grin. As Castiel opened his mouth (Dean was positive he was going to make a statement about the impossibility of humans containing bovine excrement), Dean continued on hastily, “But as a whole—yeah, I guess I’m okay. I mean, you cook a hell lot better than I do.”
Castiel tilted his head to one side. “That is true, Dean,” he said gravely, and Dean laughed.
“Right, like you guys need your egos stroked,” he said, pulling plates out of the dishwasher to set the table. “Do robots have self-esteem? Can you guys get depression?”
“I suspect I would not enjoy finding out the answer to that question,” Castiel said as they sat down. “Have you ever encountered a depressed robot?”
“In my experience? No. But you know, my experience with personal bots is limited to you, and uh, Ruby. And I don’t like Ruby, so I try to limit the experience to a bare minimum.” Dean grimaced.
“Ruby is Sam’s personal bot, correct?”
“Yeah. Right now she’s some chick with dark hair. Used to be blond, but Sam redesigned her. Hell knows why, since redesigns are supposed to be really expensive. Hell, I don’t know. Sam’s way more into the bot thing than I am. But I guess he’ll be pulling out now, since he’s going steady with Jess.”
“Jess?”
“His lawyer friend. She’s coming over tonight, didn’t I tell you? Anyway, you can chat it up with Ruby, I guess. Maybe you guys will get along. Make robot friends. Or something.”
Castiel took a bite of his pork chop, looking thoughtful. Finally, he said, “Robots don’t have friends. We have owners, operators or programmers.”
“What do you mean? I’m your friend, aren’t I?” Dean paused, then winced as the words sank in. “That sounded so grade-school, didn’t it. But seriously, man—I’m never going to give you a friendship bracelet or anything, but I’d like to think that we’re friends.”
Castiel hesitated, looking a little confused. “Friend: noun, a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.” He paused.
Dean laughed. “Look, man, you can’t take everything so literally,” he said. “Friends don’t work within dictionary definitions.”
“True. Affection and personal regard are such abstract terms and difficult to define.”
“Yeah, well, to hell with the dictionary,” Dean said.
“It must be very confusing,” Castiel pointed out. “How do you know when you have overstepped your parameters? What are the consequences of such transgressions?”
“Well, then you fight, ignore each other for a few days, then you make up and the friendship goes on. That’s the beauty of humanity: we make shit up as we go along. It’s crazy, but it works.”
Chapter Three
Author: daymarket
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Notes: AU robot!fic. This fic will probably have 3 or 4 parts. Ish. Maybe.
Summary: Dean takes his first steps into the 22nd century with his very own P.A.L., the most sophisticated robot on the market. One programming muddle later, he finds himself stuck with a contrary, stiff robot who doesn't quite know how to act human.
Chapter 1
x
If Dean had programmed Castiel the conventional way, he would already know everything that was worth knowing. As it was, Dean had to do it the hard way; a.k.a. actually talking and interacting. To quote Sam, it completely undermined the point of a robotic companion in the first place, but hey: at least it wasn’t boring.
So: Five Things Dean Learned About Castiel.
1. Castiel had no tact whatsoever.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t need to sleep,” Dean said as he pulled back at the rumpled blankets of his bed. Castiel had trailed him to the door of the bedroom and stood watching him stiffly. “Do you guys shut down for the night, to save power?”
“Will we be having sexual relations?” Castiel asked. Dean froze mid-pull and tried to ignore the churning in his stomach that the sentence produced. “I have an extensive range of sexual positions and can perform anal, oral—”
“No!” Dean sputtered, cutting off the horrifying list. “No sex! Just sleep!”
“Very well, then,” Castiel said, and Dean swore that there was a definite note of disapproval in his voice. “I’ll be outside if you change your mind.”
He closed the door behind him as he left. Dean leaned against the bedpost and breathed deeply for a few minutes, trying to erase the (to be honest, not entirely unappealing) images in his brain. As he slid under the blankets, he was determined not to think about anal sex, oral sex, Castiel giving any kind of sex, or in fact, sex ever again.
2. Two words not in Castiel’s dictionary: personal space.
His alarm rang around nine in the morning. Dean grunted and flapped an arm around his bedstand, but it shut off before he got there. Dean opened his eyes in confusion to see Castiel’s face right in front of him. He yelped and jumped back. “Jesus, Cas!”
“Good morning,” Castiel said, apparently oblivious.
Dean stared at the bot: Castiel was sitting in a chair next to the bed, his hands folded neatly in his lap and his head tilted to one side. “What the hell? Were you there all night?”
Castiel shook his head. “Only after your sleeping patterns stabilized,” he said finally. “When I determined that you were asleep, I decided it would be appropriate to enter.”
“Okay, ground rules: until I wake up, stay out of my room, okay? My room, my personal space. Your room, your…you don’t have a room. Right.”
“I am meant to be your personal companion,” Castiel said severely.
“Not while you’re in my face,” Dean said illogically. Castiel looked more disapproving than ever, but he did back off.
“I’ll go prepare breakfast,” Castiel announced, leaving the room with a definite huff in his step.
3. Awkwardly enough, Castiel tended to take things just a tiny bit too literally.
Dean was in the other room when he heard the phone ring, and Castiel was the one who picked it up. “Hello, Dean Winchester’s house,” he said, which made Dean wince all by itself.
There was a muffled sound from the other end of the phone. Then, Castiel said, “Why should I buy your toothpaste?” Pause. “I do not approve of this secret ingredient. Blindingly white teeth could be hazardous to other people’s vision. In addition, how can teeth be transformed into diamonds?”
Dean grinned to himself as Castiel meticulously dissected the telemarketer’s pitch word by word. He never could figure out how to stop them from calling, but maybe this would warn them off his number in the future.
(He wasn’t grinning so much when Castiel turned the same analysis on during dinner and picked apart a riveting tale Dean was telling involving several cranes and a very flustered Bobby. But that’s another story.)
4. Castiel was very self-aware of his status as a robot.
He wasn’t ashamed of Cas; plenty of people owned bots and took them out in social contexts. It was just that Dean was fantastically busy with his job, and it was almost a week before he could take a step back, breathe, and incidentally bring Cas to the Roadhouse.
Some bars, especially more fanatically religious ones who thought that bots were the creations of the devil, refused to serve robots. Fortunately, Ellen wasn’t one of them, although her expression was skeptical when Dean came in with Castiel in tow. “I thought you weren’t into the techno craze,” she commented as she wiped a glass clean. “Isn’t that more your brother’s arena?”
“Yeah, well, I’m joining the modern world. Oh, this is Castiel,” he added. “Castiel, this is Ellen, the owner of this fine establishment and one of the toughest ladies I’ve ever known.”
“Huh,” Ellen said. “Looks like one of those reedy, nerdy types.”
“Why does everyone say that?” Dean said. “I didn’t pick the body profile, Sam did.”
“Your brother was here for a party not long ago,” Ellen commented. “Saw him with a woman—blond hair, tall. You know her?”
Dean frowned. “You mean Ruby? I didn’t know he sent in for another redesign.”
“No, not Ruby—I saw her, too. I think Sam’s dating a fellow lawyer,” Ellen said. “A proper human woman, you know?”
“Oh,” Dean said, impressed. “Wow. Little Sam, all grown up.”
“It is not appropriate to date a robot,” Castiel added. Ellen looked at him in mild surprise. “In order to have a truly meaningful relationship, both parties must have free will.”
Ellen raised an eyebrow. “Free will? That’s a lofty idea for a robot.”
“Not at all,” Castiel said. “I understand it precisely because I don’t have it.”
“You mean from a theoretical point of view,” Dean said slowly. “Don’t all bots have the Three Laws or something? You know, you have to—what is it, thou shalt not kill? Or what?”
“I think you’re confusing robotics with the Bible,” Ellen said dryly. “Look the Laws up, Dean; you don’t want to break your bot before you get good use out of him. So, what can I get you?”
5. Everything aside, Castiel had one hell of a metabolism.
“I think I’m starting to feel something,” Castiel said calmly after his sixth shot in a row. Dean shared a glance with Ellen, who grinned.
“Sam knew what he was doing when he set the physical parameters,” Ellen observed. “I’ve seen Ruby drink; two shots in and her joints start locking up. Good thing, since Sam’s pretty lightweight himself.”
“So, how about a free beer to celebrate you burning a hole in my wallet?” Dean suggested, pretty slyly if he thought. Ellen rolled her eyes at him but tossed him a can of Guinness anyway. Opening it, Dean toasted Castiel, who looked back at him impassively. “Glad to know you can hold it, man,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Five’s my limit, and I can’t take them all at once, either.”
“Of course I can hold it,” Castiel said. “After all—I’m not alive, am I?”
X
Saturday morning. Dean woke up with a splitting hangover and a sour taste in his mouth. Castiel was a firm believer in the idea that sugar rotted your soul, apparently, but the hot black coffee did help clear Dean’s head a bit.
Castiel was curled up with a copy of Cat’s Cradle; he offered to stop reading and clean the house instead, but Dean turned the offer down. Castiel deserved a few quiet moments to himself, and Dean wanted to look up the Laws that Ellen had mentioned.
With that goal in mind, Dean typed “programmable artificial life” into the search engine. Interestingly, the first result that came up in the autocomplete tool was “programmable artificial life sex,” which just about proved the theory that yeah, the internet was for porn. With a wry grin, Dean made a mental note to come back later—not because he wanted to have sex with Castiel, of course, but just to know what the hell the appeal was. Instead, he forged onward to the encyclopedia article and settled down for some dry reading:
“The Three Laws of Robotics, as conceived by Isaac Asimov:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
There was a lot of other technical information about the different versions of the laws, so on and so forth, but Dean gathered that the main point was that every robot had to be programmed with the three core laws, period. While people were still arguing over what exactly such a tricky concept as “free will” was, the general consensus was, yeah, robots had no free will.
As it usually went with the Internet, one page led to another, and before he knew it, Dean was reading about robotic purges in frenzied religious communities and how the leader of some church had called for a boycott of all robots as they were soulless, which even Dean knew was a damned stupid thing. He wasn’t really a fan of personal bots, sure, but if they got rid of all of them, humanity would drop right back into the Stone Age.
Or not the Stone Age, but pretty close. Anyway.
He read about nothing in particular for almost three hours, until the rumbling of his stomach reminded him that it was time to eat. He didn’t usually eat lunch on weekdays, preferring to save stomach space for his weekend feasts. And yeah, now that Castiel was cooking, they really were feasts—the bot’s cheeseburgers were something to die for.
The phone rang as he stood to leave, and Dean picked it up with a quick glance at the called ID. “Yeah, Sam,” he said in greeting.
“Hey,” Sam said. “Dean, is okay if I bring another person to dinner tonight?”
Dean paused. Oh, crap. “Dinner?” he said with an awkward grin. “Tonight?”
Silence from the other end of the phone. Then: “…you forgot, didn’t you.”
“No! Of course not,” Dean said. “It just, uh, slipped my mind. Uh, when was it again? Six?”
“Seven,” Sam corrected.
“Right, right. Well, bring all the people you want.” Dean grinned before asking, “This new person wouldn’t happen to be the law firm chick, would it?”
“How did you know?” Sam said, sounding adorably flustered. “Did the guys from work or—oh. Ellen?”
“Hey, you can’t keep secrets like this for long, man,” Dean chided, sliding back into his seat. “So, are you guys steady?”
“Pretty steady, yeah. Her name’s Jess, and I guess it might be a bit too early to say this, but I think she’s the one, Dean.”
“Aww, isn’t that romantic. Little Sammy falling in love.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, sounding embarrassed but pleased.
“Well, okay. I want to meet mystery Jess anyway, you know, give her the big brother warning—”
“Christ, Dean, I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“Quit whining, Sam. I’ll see you at seven. Castiel’s cooking, so you don’t have to worry about food poisoning this time.”
“Castiel? Oh, right, your robot. So how’s the bot working out for you?” Sam asked.
Dean glanced in the direction of the kitchen, where delicious smells were wafting out, and gave a shrug. “Pretty good, I guess,” he said. “He’s a decent cook.”
“And a good lay?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “What is it with robots and porn? Get your head out of the gutter, Sam, I haven’t touched him.”
Sam sounded genuinely confused. “Really? I mean, not at all?”
Dean paused. “Why would I?”
“It’s kind of going to waste, isn’t it? Buying a fancy expensive bot just to cook and clean? You could get a standard kitchenmaid bot for that.”
“He does other things,” Dean protested. “My laundry, for instance.”
“Well, if that’s your style, I guess I can’t say otherwise,” Sam said doubtfully.
Dean shrugged. “I guess I’m doomed to only sleep with real people forever. I don’t know, Sam, sleeping with a bot is just weird.”
“They feel the same,” Sam pointed out.
Dean winced. “God, don’t get into your wild monkey escapades with Ruby, please. Not interested.”
“Well, I’m just saying, Dean! People don’t buy personal bots to do their paperwork. There’s a reason for the realistic figure, that’s all.”
“I’m doomed to die a Luddite,” Dean said. “I don’t know, man, it’s just not my idea of fun.”
“Right,” Sam said. “Well, I guess my own personal bot days are going to be over soon. Jess is awesome, I mean, she’s really…”
“God, you’re such a sap when you’re in love. Shut up, and I’ll see you seven.”
Sam laughed. “Try not to scare her off.”
“I’ll try my best,” Dean said sarcastically. Sam laughed and hung up.
Dean shook his head and put the phone back on its hook. “Hey, Cas?” he yelled.
Castiel appeared in the doorway, hands in the ridiculous frilly apron Dean had purchased for him (he looked good in pink, who knew?). “Yes?” Castiel said. “Lunch will be ready in half an hour.”
“Right. Well, Sam’s coming for dinner tonight. So’s Jess and Ruby, I think. Do we have enough food in the refrigerator?”
Castiel considered it. “If everybody eats sparingly, then yes.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Dean said. “I’m going to head out to the grocery later; you want to come?”
Castiel gave him a look that clearly said, Don’t ask stupid questions. “Of course,” he said.
“Okay, then,” Dean said. “You know, for a personal bot, you sure glare a lot.”
“I am not programmed for a coy personality,” Castiel said, a touch testily. Dean had to laugh—yeah, coy was definitely not in Cas’ dictionary.
“Right,” Dean said, following Cas to the kitchen. “So, Cas, I was thinking. I did some research on the Laws earlier.”
“And?” Cas asked.
“You have to obey any order a human gives you, right? Even if it’s something really stupid?”
“According to the Second Law, yes, but not if it violates the First Law.”
“So how does that work? Is it a compulsion, like—you try to do it, but you can’t? Could you fight a command?”
Cas looked up with the stove with a small frown. “As a personal bot, your orders take priority over all others.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
Cas set down the pan. “What answer are you looking for?”
Dean shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just that you don’t seem very obedient.” He grinned. “More like, contrary and stiff as a board. Not that I mind terribly, but I thought the Laws dominated everything.”
“They do,” Castiel said. “I have never violated a direct order.”
Dean processed this for a moment. A slow grin spread over his face as Castiel gazed back at him calmly, the only sign of upset a slight furrow in between his eyebrows. “A direct order,” Dean said. “But we humans don’t often give direct orders, do we? We exaggerate, we assume, we’re sarcastic as hell.”
Castiel inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. “But that’s your programming fault, not mine,” Castiel said dryly.
“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch, aren’t you,” Dean said.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Castiel said. His eyes narrowing in concentration, he carefully eased the pork chops out of the pan and onto the plate. “Minus the son part, as I was manufactured in a factory. But other than that, yes.”
“Mmm,” Dean said, reaching a hand out to snag one. Castiel smacked him lightly with the spatula and frowned reprovingly. “Hey! What happened to the whole ‘don’t hurt humans’ bit?”
“You are hardly injured, Dean,” Castiel said.
“True, but I could be,” Dean said. “What if it had hit, I don’t know, on a bruise or something?”
“But it didn’t,” Castiel said. “You ask a lot about robotics, but fundamentally it boils down to this: the Laws are words, and words are to be obeyed exactly as they are. No more, no less. There is no place for conjecture in robotics.”
Dean mulled this over. “But there are different versions of the laws, aren’t they?”
“Perhaps,” Castiel said, “but that is a human concern.”
Dean whistled. “So you guys can argue your way out of something, as long as you’ve fulfilled the letter of the Laws exactly.”
“We don’t argue,” Castiel said.
“Right, because you don’t have free will,” Dean said. “You know, so many churches have sticks up their asses over this point. I read this article on the Net about a mass destruction of personal bots somewhere in Kentucky.”
“And you?” Castiel asked as he carried the plate out to the dining room table.
“And me what?”
“Do you have a stick up your ass over this?” Castiel said. As Dean continued to stare in confusion, Castiel gestured to himself. “You stated that this wasn’t your choice,” Castiel said. “Does that statement still hold to be true?”
“I mean, I never thought I’d need a personal bot,” Dean said. “You know, bachelor living on his own, if he doesn’t pick up his own socks then obviously there’s a bit of a problem.” Dean shrugged. “But I mean, I work with bots all the time out at the construction yard. Granted, they don’t look as you do, but they’re still AI.”
“That’s not answering the question,” Castiel said.
“Well, you know humans, we’re full of evasion and bullshit,” Dean said with a half-grin. As Castiel opened his mouth (Dean was positive he was going to make a statement about the impossibility of humans containing bovine excrement), Dean continued on hastily, “But as a whole—yeah, I guess I’m okay. I mean, you cook a hell lot better than I do.”
Castiel tilted his head to one side. “That is true, Dean,” he said gravely, and Dean laughed.
“Right, like you guys need your egos stroked,” he said, pulling plates out of the dishwasher to set the table. “Do robots have self-esteem? Can you guys get depression?”
“I suspect I would not enjoy finding out the answer to that question,” Castiel said as they sat down. “Have you ever encountered a depressed robot?”
“In my experience? No. But you know, my experience with personal bots is limited to you, and uh, Ruby. And I don’t like Ruby, so I try to limit the experience to a bare minimum.” Dean grimaced.
“Ruby is Sam’s personal bot, correct?”
“Yeah. Right now she’s some chick with dark hair. Used to be blond, but Sam redesigned her. Hell knows why, since redesigns are supposed to be really expensive. Hell, I don’t know. Sam’s way more into the bot thing than I am. But I guess he’ll be pulling out now, since he’s going steady with Jess.”
“Jess?”
“His lawyer friend. She’s coming over tonight, didn’t I tell you? Anyway, you can chat it up with Ruby, I guess. Maybe you guys will get along. Make robot friends. Or something.”
Castiel took a bite of his pork chop, looking thoughtful. Finally, he said, “Robots don’t have friends. We have owners, operators or programmers.”
“What do you mean? I’m your friend, aren’t I?” Dean paused, then winced as the words sank in. “That sounded so grade-school, didn’t it. But seriously, man—I’m never going to give you a friendship bracelet or anything, but I’d like to think that we’re friends.”
Castiel hesitated, looking a little confused. “Friend: noun, a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.” He paused.
Dean laughed. “Look, man, you can’t take everything so literally,” he said. “Friends don’t work within dictionary definitions.”
“True. Affection and personal regard are such abstract terms and difficult to define.”
“Yeah, well, to hell with the dictionary,” Dean said.
“It must be very confusing,” Castiel pointed out. “How do you know when you have overstepped your parameters? What are the consequences of such transgressions?”
“Well, then you fight, ignore each other for a few days, then you make up and the friendship goes on. That’s the beauty of humanity: we make shit up as we go along. It’s crazy, but it works.”
Chapter Three
