Blue Fairy Magic

For the sherlockkink prompt:

Steampunk AU? Time travel? WATSON'S SECRET TWIN BROTHER?! I don't care. But please, please please, for the love of GOD, Gigolo Joe was the ~only~ thing that made A.I. ~almost~ worth watching and I ~need~ a fic with him in it.

Please please please, kind meme. I need this like I need AIR.

Fic doesn't have to be long and huge. 6 word fills are fine. Oneshots? Great! Huge epics sprawling across several Internets? Capitol! Just... Gigolo Joe.

Author's note: I like this idea a lot, and spent a little time pondering on how it could actually work, but I never really did come up with some clever way to incorporate Sherlock Holmes. Instead, I just made RDJ an A.I. character-kind of meshing a lot of Sherlock Holmes, Harry Lockhart, Tony Stark, Terry Crabtree-all into one. I hope you guys enjoy it, and be gentle with me. It's my first time *bats eyelashes*

"Are you sure you're not upset?" Joe asked, glancing at David, who sat silently beside him in the helicopter they'd stolen.

David didn't respond. He'd longed to find the Blue Fairy, to become a real boy, to be loved by Monica the way he loved her, but things were different now. He'd met his Blue Fairy, and his heart that was not there was broken. Professor Hobby. That was his wish-granting fairy, who could not grant wishes. Instead of becoming flesh and blood, David only felt like more metals and wire. He couldn't shake the images of the clones, some only half-finished, burning in his mind he now understood he didn't really have.

"It was wrong of them," Joe said. "I was created to simulate emotions, but at least I know what I am."

David, he knew, was not so lucky. He'd been programmed to be ignorant. They had purposely created a monster-a mecha that could not understand he was mecha.

"What will I do?" David asked quietly, not really to Joe, but not really to himself either.

Teddy glanced at him. The super toy, too, had been programmed to pick up on emotions. After all, he was created for children, the most emotional of all beings. David, despite being an imaginary child, displayed said emotions so strongly. It was hard for the robotic bear to even compute he was not one.

Joe knew where he belonged, his mechanical instincts strong. He just wasn't sure about David, and that confused him. He had been programmed with a sense of emotion, empathy, understanding...but nothing added up to why he felt them around David. These emotions were programmed for women, in a romanitc, lustful sense. They were equally strong, but he knew they were different around the boy. They weren't romantic or lust-filled. It was something new.

They made their way back to the outskirts of Rouse City, and abandoned the transportation device, taking the path back to the city on foot. It was a tiny town, scattered with houses, a general store.

"It is going to rain," Teddy observed from David's shoulder eyeing the sky.

"Yes, it is." David looked up at the threatning sky. He turned to Joe. "What should we do?"

The other mecha looked around, surveying the area, and took David by the hand. Wordlessly, he moved them quickly down the road to a house he'd spotted in the distance. A small house, the lawn uncared for, the paint chipping away, gutters hanging. All signs of being abandoned, and hopefully, empty.

He moved to the door, and with his free hand, knocked. He turned to David. "If we're lucky, there will be nobody home."

When nothing happened, he knocked again. Somebody answered. Perhaps they weren't so lucky after all. It was a man, disheveled and tired-looking. He looked between them. "Hi. Can I help you?"

"We do hate to bother you, Sir," Joe said. "But we're on a journey, and to our dismay, it has begun to rain." He took a step forward, and the man took a step backwards. "Would you be so kind as to let us remain here, just until the storm is over?"

David figeted as the man's gaze moved from Joe, to Teddy, to the boy. His brows furrowed slightly. Joe was obviously used to suspicious people because he quickly, and quite smoothly, added, "We will cause no harm to you or your residence. We are mecha. We are harmless."

" 'Mecha'?" The man smiled a little and shook his head. "Oh no. No, no, no, no, no."

"No?" David's face fell.

"I'm really sorry, but you...people really creep me out." The man sighed, scratching his head. He looked at David, and then back at Joe. "You're really mecha?"

"I-" David's first thought was to correct him. To tell him he was a child, but he remembered Professor Hobby, the unfinished David models, and he stopped himself. "Yes." His voice was small.

Thunder sounded above and the man rubbed his sore, tired eyes behind his crooked glasses. He stepped aside. "Just until the rain stops. Come in."

"Thank you," Joe smiled polietly, before prodding David inside, and then himself.

The inside of the house was equally as bad as the outside. Dark, messy. It was as if nobody had lived there in ages. The owner closed and locked his door, and then stared awkwardly at them. "I would offer you coffee or something, but..." he trailed off.

Joe smiled, and finally let go of David's hand. He held it out to the other man. "Gigolo Joe."

The other man hesitantly shook it. "Um...okay..." he managed a half smile. "Roger Downs." He turned his head to look at David. "And who's the squirt?"

"My name is David," the boy said quietly, clutching Teddy.

Roger squinted skeptically, and moved towards him. "You're really a robot." It sounded like a cross between a question and a comment. He glanced back at Joe. "And you too?"

"Do you go to the Flesh Fairs?" David asked, drawing back from him. The man was seriously giving off anti-android vibes.

"NO." It came out more sternly than he'd meant it. "No, David, I don't."

David smiled a little, his body relaxing slightly. Roger moved to the kitchen and started coffee. He found it odd that he had guests in the house, and was only making it for himself.

"So," he called from the kitchen. "What kind of journey?" He re-entered the living room with a mug.

David and Joe looked at each other. The problem was, they weren't really sure. Roger sipped at his hot liquid. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Against his better judgement, and artificial instincts, Joe told him everything. As he did so, David moved across the room to a desk, a book cover catching his eye. He fingered the worn cover. It was the book Monica had read to him. It was Pinnochio.

He interupted Joe, holding it up. "Is this yours?"

Roger and Joe both looked at him. "Yah," Roger nodded. "You wanna read it?"

"It's not real." David put it back down bitterly. "There is no blue fairy, and there is no magic."

Roger smiled, and his face seemed to soften for the first time since they'd arrived. He took another drink of coffee. "You don't believe in magic, David?"

"No, I don't." David wiped at his eyes, still unsure of why he'd been programmed to cry. His precious creators had obviously expected him to feel pain and sadness if they allowed him tears.

Roger wordlessly handed Joe his mug and moved over to the boy. He tugged at his arm. "C'mere, there's something I wanna show you."

David only stared at him. Roger nodded his head in the direction he was trying to move them. "C'mon."

Reluctantly, the boy allowed himself to be pulled into another room. Joe and Teddy followed. It was a messy room, a messy bedroom at that, with a table set up on one side. Notes and various containers, and chips and wire, were littered across the top. David took in the items. He didn't understand any of their meanings.

"I used to work for Sentron," Roger explained. "An off-brand mecha company." He picked up one of the wires. "I quit before they went under. I couldn't stand what I was seeing. What the company was doing. It was confusing."

"What do you mean?" Joe looked at him.

Roger continued to stare at the wire in his hands. He was smiling, but his face showed anything but amusement. "You look so much like us," he muttered. "And you're created to act so much like us, and feel so much like us, and yet we still treat you no different than the blender or washing machine."

"My mommy didn't treat me that way," David said, his voice breaking slightly.

Roger nodded and David and turned to Joe. Despite him being a mecha, the same as David, he had a feeling he was speaking more maturely with him. "I've spent the last eight years of my life trying to fix the problem that fucked up the human race."

"And what was that?" Joe asked, his eyes following Roger's hand as he set the wire back down. He had a feeling he already knew.

"Mechas." Roger looked at him. He picked up one of the smaller containers. "One of our space voyages brought back sediments of something Sentron went to work on a good few years back- D.N.A based remains, but not biological." He half-smiled again. "They tinkered with it, tested it on some micro-chips, and then the government put a block on the project, and the idea all together."

He shook the container. "I stole what Sentron had left after the ban."

"What happened to the micro-chips?" Joe asked, after being silent for a few moments.

"They began to change," Roger told him. He knew the mecha was already beginning to figure it out. "Became softer, warmer, changed color...they were becoming flesh and blood."

David stared at him, his eyes wide. Roger laughed a little. "That's some pretty cool magic right there, huh, kiddo?"

"You mean, this-" David tapped the container softly with his index finger. "This turns mecha into..." what was the word Martin had used?

"Orga," Joe finished. He looked at the container. "It's what started the flesh fairs, isn't it?"

"Word got out of a secret project turning machine into man, and the world went fucking psycho," Roger nodded. "I'm in trouble myself. I conviently quit the same time the space sediment went missing." He set the container down and David picked it up, his little face filled with awe.

The sound of the rain grew fainter, and soon, came to a halt. David set the container back on the table, and made of note of it. "The rain stopped."

"Why don't you crash here?" Roger suggested. "You haven't killed me or had me arrested yet, so..." He looked around. "Don't really have much sleeping space."

"Oh, we don't sleep," Joe said simply.

"But we can be quiet," David added. The same way he had told Henry.

"That's um..." Roger rocked back and forth on his heels. "Unsettling. But, okay..."

He stared at David's raggedy clothes and untied shoes. "I might have a T-shirt or something you can borrow."

David looked confused. Roger shook his head. "Let me go get it for you."

When he left the room, David turned to Joe, grinning. The other mecha still wasn't sure why his smile made him happy. He wasn't programmed for that.

"He could make us real, Joe," he said quietly. "Real people."

Roger returned, a wad of clothes tucked under one arm. He held out a wrinkled T-shirt at arms-length, and looked it up and down. He tossed it to David. "This'll work."

It landed on David's head and he pulled it off. He looked at it. "It's too big."

"It's to sleep in, Champ," Roger said absent-mindedly. "You'll be alright."

"I don't sleep," David reminded him.

Roger looked at him. "It's to...sit quietly in."

He tossed another shirt and pair of sweats to Joe. "Here."

Joe looked at them, and then back at Roger. "Thank you."

Author's second note: Okay, I know the movie didn't end with Joe and David together. It ended with David and super mechas/alients/Joe being beamed to stripper heaven, but I like this version better so shh....

To Be Continued...