Prompt : Alfred is the IT tech guy at the company Lovino works at. They don't actually meet at first but somehow spend time exchanging funny/mocking emails and grow to like each other and then stuff progresses from there?

The awesome dualce filled my prompts last time and it was amazing, and so I was pumped to get the chance to return the favor! Just missed deadline but I hope this is worth the wait?

Lovino Vargas had a new job. With this new job came new responsibilities, such as making spreadsheets and answering phone calls and sending emails. In order to fulfill these new responsibilities, Lovino had been given a new cubicle with an arrangement of new office supplies. These supplies included several notepads, stacks of sticky notes, file folders for organization, a shit ton of pens, a calculator, and one motivational poster with a kitten on it, despite the fact that kittens had little to no work ethic. There was also a row of tiny flower figurines lining the back edge of the desk, provided by his brother to "brighten up" the small area, seeing as there were no windows nearby. Lovino's focus at the moment, however, was shifting between two other objects: the phone and the computer.

The phone he held in his hand, almost up to his ear. He could hear it making a dial tone but made no effort to call someone or hang up. The computer contained a single flashing window, cheerfully informing him that it wasn't sure what was wrong, but he'd fucked it up big time. The original idea had been to call the IT department and get someone to exorcise the damn thing, except he had no idea how to work the phone either. There were a million buttons on it and no labels. He didn't even know the department's number.

Okay, yeah, Lovino was quite possibly the least tech-savvy person in the world. He was definitely the least tech-savvy in the office, which was why he absolutely could not ask any of his fellow employees what the hell he should do because fuck no, that would be too embarrassing. Especially considering it was his first day.

What the hell was he doing here? He was going to be fired within a week, good God.

The thing was, he might have lied a little bit on his application about his computer skills. But when there was an opening at the highly prestigious company downtown, you went for it, regardless of whether or not you were qualified for the job—or at least, that's what he had psyched himself into believing. Lovino used his heels to push the rolling chair back to the extent the phone cord would let him and leaned back to peer into the hallway. He snorted quietly when he spotted two of his new coworkers quietly discussing something in the cubicle opposite his. Probably he'd gotten the job out of all the applicants because he was the only one who could dress himself worth a damn. He rolled himself back in, unwilling to look at the hideous fashion sense of office workers for any longer.

The crux of the matter was, he was working for a company (he had no idea what it did) in a new job (he had no idea what he was doing) with a bunch of intimidating but abysmally dressed coworkers (had had no idea how they lived with themselves). He gently set the phone back in the cradle and bit his lip in an effort to prevent the frustrated tears that were building up and trying to get loose.

Sniffling just a little bit, he tried pressing the spacebar repeatedly. Then he tried waving the cursor around a little bit. Then he slouched back and glared. Who did this fucking computer think it was anyway? He hit the spacebar again with more force. And then clicked the mouse savagely several time, just for the hell of it.

A window popped up.

Please wait, a support representative will join shortly.

Support representative has joined this chat session.

Alfred Jones: Welcome to IT Chat!

Alfred Jones: This is Alfred!

Alfred Jones: How may I assist you today?

Lovino stared at the screen. "What."

Nothing happened for a few moments, then another line showed up.

Alfred Jones: Hello? Are you there Mr. Vargas?

Holy shit the ghost in the computer knew his name. He made the sign of the Cross.

Alfred Jones: uhhhhh did the software open itself or?

Alfred Jones: whatever I'll just activate the remote control I guess

Lovino narrowed his eyes. This ghost was being awfully informal with him.

Hesitantly he reached out and angled the keyboard closer so he could type.

Lovino Vargas: Get out of my computer

This seemed to give the ghost pause because it took almost a minute for it to reply.

Alfred Jones: Sorry about that Mr. Vargas, we're still getting used to this software.

Alfred Jones: I'm one of the IT representatives for the company.

Lovino Vargas: What the hell is that supposed to mean

Alfred Jones: We're the department that deals with technological issues and malfunctions.

Alfred Jones: You opened the chat feature on the help program?

Oh thank God there was a help program.

Lovino Vargas: The computer is angry and possibly possessed

Another pause.

Alfred Jones: What is it doing exactly?

Lovino Vargas: There's an error message and it's flashing and nothing will open

Lovino Vargas: It says "an error has occurred while trying to display error message"

Alfred Jones: wow

Lovino Vargas: What the hell do you mean wow

Alfred Jones: Sorry, that was a typo.

Alfred Jones: I can remote control your computer to fix the issue for you.

Lovino Vargas: A typo for what

Lovino Vargas: Can you actually do that

Alfred Jones: Sure can!

Alfred Jones: Give me just a moment.

The cursor started moving by itself. Lovino jerked back.

A black box with white letters in it opened spontaneously and text started appearing. After a few moments the error window disappeared. A few more windows opened and closed in quick succession, showing brief glimpses of undecipherable strings of numbers and strange words. He eyed the console warily until the chat window returned to the forefront.

Alfred Jones: You're all set!

Alfred Jones: Anything else I can help with today?

Lovino Vargas: yeah what exactly did you mean by "wow"

Alfred Jones: Alright, don't hesitate to use the chat feature again!

Alfred Jones: Have a nice day!

The chat closed. Lovino pursed his lips at the screen. Rude. But hey, his computer was fixed. Now he just had to figure out exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

Lovino's second experience with Alfred the IT rep came a week later, and started with Microsoft Word being a dick. Someone—another employee? his supervisor?—had come by and asked him to type up a report on several vehicles based on a series of forwarded pictures, complete with descriptions of the vehicle make, model, license, preexisting damage, and service history. So maybe this was a car insurance company? Fuck if he knew.

He'd managed to look very productive, opening the pictures from his email and downloading them and typing up a quick response email saying he'd get right on that. Except he couldn't get right on that because somehow he'd broken Word just by opening a new document. Not quite believing this was happening, he tried the tested and true fix-it method of rapidly clicking the mouse and hitting the space bar. Word remained unchanged.

Swearing profusely but discreetly, he considered his options. He could email back the mysterious other employee, but this was hardly their problem. He could ask one of employees in the cubicles around him. Or...

He cautiously hit the IT Aid icon on the taskbar.

Welcome to the IT Aid Help Desk, Lovino Vargas! the header greeted him cheerfully. The whole window was designed in shades of revolting gray and green, absolutely not colors anyone with actual working eyes would have chosen. Also, the damn thing knew his name again. He wasn't one to subscribe to those ridiculous theories about the impending machine takeover of humanity, but sometimes—okay, he was stalling, so sue him.

His options as presented by the cheerfully tacky IT Aid program included submitting an incident report, viewing his service history, an FAQ, settings...and up in the left hand corner, next to a horribly ugly image of what he assumed was supposed to be an IT person, was "LIVE CHAT WITH A REP."

He hit it and the chat box opened.

Please wait. A support representative will join shortly.

Support representative has joined this chat session.

Alfred Jones: Hello again Mr. Vargas!

Alfred Jones: This is Alfred.

Alfred Jones: How may I assist you?

Lovino Vargas: oh no not you again. Also why do you have to submit every sentence separately it's annoying

Alfred Jones: Protocol says I should send sentences individually to make them easier to read. If it bothers you I can stop though.

Lovino Vargas: I'm not an idiot I can read

Alfred Jones: I'm sure you can!

Alfred Jones: So what seems to be the problem this time?

Lovino Vargas: you just did it again and ALSO I don't like your tone those were the most patronizing two lines I've ever read

Alfred Jones: Sorry, it's a hard habit to break. And I really didn't mean to sound patronizing! I guess it's just coming across that way in text form.

Lovino glared, distrusting, at the offending text, but decided it wasn't worth getting into it.

Lovino Vargas: okay well I broke word

Alfred Jones: The word processor? What's it doing?

Lovino Vargas: It's NOT doing that's the problem

Alfred Jones: What are you trying to do with it?

Lovino Vargas: I'm just trying to type but I can't click on anything in the window and when I use the keyboard nothing actually shows up

Alfred Jones: Does the window say it's not responding? Can you open any old documents or is this just for new ones?

Lovino Vargas: I don't know the menu bar is gone

Alfred Jones: what?

Alfred Jones: that's not even supposed to be possible how did you manage that

Lovino Vargas: EXCUSE ME

Alfred Jones: Sorry! Sorry I was surprised.

Alfred Jones: um

Alfred Jones: Did you have any work done you wanted to save?

Lovino Vargas: no I just opened it and it was like this

Alfred Jones: That's good because I'm going to have to come up there and uninstall and reinstall microsoft office.

Lovino Vargas: are you fucking kidding me

Lovino Vargas: fuck this I'm taking my lunch break

Alfred Jones: Should I just come up and fix it while you're gone then?

Alfred Jones: Hello?

When Lovino returned to his desk two hours later, the only sign that Alfred the IT rep had been there was a single sticky note stuck to his monitor. In messy handwriting that could barely be called a scribble, the disrespectful asshole had written "So do you ever use end punctuation when you type?"

Growling, Lovino tore the thing off and shoved it in one of the numerous nondescript drawers of stuff in his desk. Idiot used enough punctuation for the both of them, why should he bother? When he opened Word this time, though, the cursor blinked cheerfully at him from the blank document. With a huff, he got to work.

The third time was hardly the charm.

He impatiently opened the IT Aid chat, and lo and behold, there was Alfred on the other side, because of course he was.

Alfred Jones: Back so soon?

Lovino Vargas: shut the fuck up everything is in french how do I change it back

Alfred Jones: You know instead of typing out "shut the fuck up" you could just use stfu. That's what us young cool kids are doing nowadays.

Lovino Vargas: are you fucking kidding me? I WILL REPort you to someone

Alfred Jones: I get the feeling you're a little lost here, buddy. You probably don't even know who to report me to.

Lovino Vargas: DO NOT. CALL ME. BUDDY

Alfred Jones: Then again I'm not entirely sure who exactly I would report me to either? This whole company's inner workings are like inscrutable

Lovino Vargas: wow that's a big word did you get it off a word-a-day calendar

Lovino Vargas: Wait you don't know what this company does either

Alfred Jones: oh man i have no idea i just do tech stuff!

Alfred Jones: anyway so you've changed the language huh?

Lovino Vargas: FRENCH

Alfred Jones: c'est des conneries, right? haha!

Alfred Jones: okay open the start menu and hit the panneau de configuration, then "horloge, langue et region" (with a little accent thingy, next to a globe with a clock?)

Lovino Vargas: okay, got it

Alfred Jones: okay then hit the green text that say region et langue, then in the third tab there's a language drop down menu and you'll see anglais

Lovino Vargas: how did I accidentally change it to french in the first place? This is complicated

Alfred Jones: beats me dude?

Alfred Jones: actually this is kinda nice, being able to talk to someone all informal like on the job!

Lovino Vargas: WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO DO THAT ANYWAY

Alfred Jones: idk I just thought you seemed like a cool guy?

Alfred Jones: Sorry, I'll stop.

Lovino Vargas: whatever type how you want I don't care.

Lovino Vargas: see end punctuation

Alfred Jones: !

Dear God what kind of weirdo was he associating with?

Lovino Vargas: how do you know french anyway

Alfred Jones: I have a half brother who lives in quebec! i learned french so I could argue about hockey with him!

Alfred Jones: I basically just cheer for whatever team his fave is up against next!

Lovino considered this for a moment.

Lovino Vargas: I like you

Alfred Jones: ;)

Sometimes (a lot of the time) an actual technological issue made Lovino open the IT Aid chat; other times he opened it when has was bored or wanted to look productive. As it turned out, though, Alfred was a lot of fun to talk to, and had plenty of stories that left Lovino trying to choke back laughter in his seat so he wouldn't be heard by the surrounding employees.

Alfred Jones: and there was this incident with NOODLES oh my gOD

Alfred Jones: I cannot even explain

Lovino Vargas: well you can't just leave it like that fucker

Alfred Jones: okay WELL!

Before he quite realized what was happening, they were sharing details of their personal lives, not just amusing anecdotes about other employees or their siblings. On one occasion, after Alfred had walked him through a "printing not supported" error:

Alfred Jones: so I'm completely naked right, and all the old ladies start shrieking about this cockroach

Alfred Jones: motherfucker was huge, yeah, but I'm srsly stark naked

Alfred Jones: but I couldn't leave those little old ladies defenseless so I jump down from the stool

Lovino Vargas: dear lord

Alfred Jones: and I grab my shoe and I just started whacking it!

Lovino Vargas: help

Alfred Jones: junk swinging around and everything

Alfred Jones: think the gals appreciated the show, though

Lovino Vargas: I would think they were busy being terrified of cockroaches to appreciate their model in all his glory coming down on a cockroach like the hand of god

Alfred Jones: yeah idk if that one lady fainted because she hates bugs or my abs were just too much for her to handle?

Alfred Jones: I vote the second one though

Lovino Vargas: I can't believe you nude modeled for a senior citizens' art class

Alfred Jones: they're the most fun! sometimes I also do it for the university's art classes, and the pay is nice as far as side jobs go!

Lovino Vargas: I'd like to be in one of those art classes

Alfred Jones: yeah? ;)

Lovino Vargas: I went to school for art you know

Alfred Jones: and ended up here?

Lovino Vargas: yeah well

Lovino Vargas: had to make money somehow

Lovino Vargas: I thought i'd still have time to paint but since i started working here I haven't had an inspiration or

Lovino Vargas: motivation i guess

Alfred Jones: huh

Alfred Jones: that sucks

Alfred Jones: sorry

Alfred Jones: but if you ever need a model let me know

Alfred Jones: no charge ;)

Lovino Vargas: have I told you that you're way too fond of that particular emoji

Alfred Jones: several times! ;)

Lovino didn't really notice anything was happening, though, until he spilled some coffee on his keyboard (nice coffee, too—what a waste), prompting his computer to tell him that the keyboard was not found and he should hit F1 to resume. Seriously? What the hell.

So there he was, with a technology problem that could not be fixed via chat. And it occurred to him that this could be used as an excuse to go up to the IT department in person, which Alfred had assured him was a nice place and not a secluded back office filled with broken computer parts and nerds like Lovino had assumed. (Okay, maybe the nerds part, Alfred had admitted.)

Except the very thought of going to see Alfred face to face made his cheeks grow warm and his heart thud out of time in his chest and oh fuck when had that happened? After sitting at his desk in mental agony for almost an hour, he had ended up snagging an extra keyboard from a neighboring cubicle and using that instead.

That day he talked to Alfred about the hideousness of the IT Aid interface and absolutely did not talk about possible romantic feelings he was starting to develop.

He started having even more tech issues after that point.

Somehow every piece of technology that came under his fingertips spontaneously malfunctioned and/or died. This included numerous computer issues, but also several paper jams, a broken coffee machine, and his cubicle's telephone actually sparking from its connection to the wall. On this occasion, a polite technician named Kiku Honda had shown up from the IT department to fix the damn thing. Through a series of (totally casual and not suspicious at all) inquiries about the department, Lovino learned that IT reps were expected to stay at their desks unless they were called out, since most computer and network errors could be fixed from a distance with the IT Aid software. He also learned that typically Alfred fixed any tech issues in this section of the building, but he was out sick that day.

When this revelation caused him to feel an almost physical pang of pain in his chest, Lovino knew he had to do something. The issue was just summoning up the courage to do it.

On a Friday afternoon two weeks later, his computer screen turned completely blue.

A passing coworker hissed sympathetically as she went by. "Ooh, blue screen of death. You're gonna need to contact IT about that."

Lovino stared at the aggravating shade of neon blue for several more moments, breathing deeply. Then he pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out an old sticky note with barely legible handwriting on it. Both for luck and for nerve. He stood abruptly and peered around over the top of his cubicle. No one was paying any attention. He slipped out of relative safety and into the gauntlet.

He ambled up two floors to the IT department slowly, because why the fuck would he be in a hurry? Upon entering the office, a large desk with IT DESK on a sign over it was placed immediately to the right. He sidled up to it, completely casual, and leaned with his elbow on the tabletop to address a young blond man hunched over a laptop.

"Hey, I've got a computer issue."

"I'll bet you do," the man mumbled.

Hmm. Three guesses who this was.

He felt a grin slowly creeping over his face.

"Yeah, it's a blue screen of death. Or I guess all you young, cool kids are calling it BSoD nowadays?"

The blond head snapped up. Lovino's breath caught for just a second, because he'd just gotten the most incredible inspiration to paint something again.

Alfred smiled. "Hey Lovi! What can I help you with today?"

Alfred Jones: ilu

Lovino Vargas: seriously I have to work now

Alfred Jones: okaaaaaaay

Alfred Jones: but I'll see you at home later

Alfred Jones: for painting? ;)

Lovino Vargas: yeah for "painting"

Lovino Vargas: ...ilu2

Lovino Vargas: wait shit an error message just popped up

and then they started their own web design company where alfred does coding and lovino designs and then they go home and have "nude modeling sessions" ;)

((IT Aid is based on a real software, nude modeling cockroach story based on real story, those are all real errors I've heard of but have not experienced, Alfred says "that's bullshit" if google translate is not misleading me))