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Malware Bites 

Prompto slides into work an hour late, hoping no one sees him as he ducks through the corridor into the IT department. He flashes his barcode to open the door, then stops dead as an MT raises its weapon and points it right at Prompto’s face. 

It also raises its other hand, as if mimicking a gun. Oh, okay. Not sent to kill him for being tardy for the seven-thousandth time, then. 

Prompto grins. He flashes finger guns back and says, “Not bad, buddy! You’re definitely getting the hang of it. But, uh. Next time maybe don’t use the actual gun, though?” 

The MT doesn’t speak but it sort of cocks its head, like its listening. Prompto gives it a friendly wave, and it sort of shakes the gun at him in response. 

There but for the grace of the Six go I, Prompto thinks with a shudder, rubbing idly at the barcode on his wrist. At some point he’d been designated as an MT, but instead of ending up a soldier who was only technically human, he’d become human technical support. A much better gig, really. That color green looked terrible with his hair. 

Prompto makes it to his desk with a pleased grin, but no sooner has he twirled around in his chair than a shadow falls next to him. 

“Late again, eh, Argentum?” 

Prompto glances up and sees his boss, Aranea, standing next to his desk. Busted. He grins. “Nah, I was just…checking out the vending machines!” His arm flails out and he grabs for something, anything, that could have conceivably come from said vending machine. His fingers close on a half-empty Snaga Soda and he lifts it. 

“I brought that for you yesterday,” Aranea says. “And you have snow on your eyelashes.” 

Prompto bats them, gets the same unimpressed look as usual, and sighs. “Yeah, I’m late. Sorry.” He doesn’t tell her why he’s late, that he was clearing out a dungeon with his friend Lucianstar114 on King’s Knight. The game was technically illegal in Niflheim, and Prompto had to jailbreak his phone just to be able to play it. 

The phone he’d been given as part of his employment contract with the Empire’s IT department. Yeah, no one’s ever claimed he made good choices. Case in point, he’s now slamming the flat, warm Snaga Soda in search of caffeine. 

“There’s coffee,” Aranea says, and then, “You can have one cup and if you don’t finish it, I’ll electrocute you.” 

Coffee is a precious, valuable substance in Niflheim – as is anything that needs to be grown instead of produced synthetically. Not that there isn’t synthetic coffee, because there is. But it tastes like engine oil mixed with dirt, so. 

The Snaga Soda isn’t much better, but it has something sweet in it that basks the chemical undertones. 

As the head of IT, Aranea is approved for a small amount of real coffee-bean-coffee. And she guards it like it’s the Zegnautus equivalent of that Crystal over in Lucis. Prompto gives her a suspicious look at the generous offer, then has a feeling it must mean he’s got an unpleasant task waiting in his email. “Oh, no.” He switches on his laptop, navigates to his work email, and sure enough there’s a help ticket waiting. 

The second he sees who it’s from, he groans. Loudly. “Aranea! Please, can’t you send someone else? Like, literally anyone?” 

“Like who? The MT in the hallway?” 

“I guarantee it can use a computer better than this guy,” Prompto says, reading over the ticket. “Next to issue, he just wrote, many.” 

Aranea snorts. “Well. You’ve met the guy, right? That’s probably true for a lot more than just his IT needs. Oh, stop giving me those puppy-dog eyes, Argentum. You know they don’t work on me.” 

“Why can’t you do it? You’re the boss! I could, like. Answer the phones or whatever.” In all his time in the IT department, Prompto has never once heard the phone ring. The Empire likes communication to be through electronic means, so it can be monitored. Still, hey, first time for everything, right? 

“No can do, Prompto. He requested you personally. I guess you made quite the impression last time.” 

Prompto bangs his head on the wall of his cubicle. “If he has the Moogle Redirect Virus again, I swear to the Six I will quit. I’ll sign up for MT training.” 

“It doesn’t work that way,” Aranea says, amused. “If you were gonna be an MT, you’d be one already. Instead, you get to do this. All glory to the Empire.” The sarcasm in her voice is as heavy as the snow outside.

Prompto sighs and tosses the mostly-empty can of Snaga into the wastebasket. There’s really no way he can get around this. The IT department isn’t the army, but you’re still not allowed to refuse a direct order, even if it’s just a help ticket for tech support. 

Especially when the help ticket is from the Imperial Chancellor. 

***

“Uh. Chancellor Izunia?” Prompto knocks on the door to the Chancellor’s office.

“Oh, yes, hello!” Ardyn Izunia, the Chancellor of Niflheim, is seated behind his desk. Prompto can just make out the bright violet of his hair. “Do come in – Prompto, was it?” 

Oh, like you don’t know.

“That’s me.” Prompto walks in and heads over to stand next to the desk. “What seems to be the problem, Chancellor?” He pastes a hopefully affable smile on his face and meets the Izunia’s strange, yellow eyes. 

“This contraption, it vexes me,” Izunia says, with a wave of his hand. He dresses like – well. Prompto doesn’t know if there’s a comparison, really. He’s seen high-ranking imperial figures before, but they’re mostly fond of robes and insignia and a lot of belts. Chancellor Izunia seems to be mostly fond of patterns. And scarves. 

It vexes you because you refuse to download the Mythril browser and are still using Iron Bangle. Probably without any of the updates or security patches. 

“Yeah, they do that,” Prompto says, with an attempt at cheerfulness he doesn’t feel. “How is it vexing you – oh, my gods, is that your desktop?” He can just barely make out the wallpaper, which is a distorted, blurry image of what looks to be a parade through some old village. In fact, Prompto thinks he’s seen this same image before in a textbook about ancient Solheim. 

Clearly the Chancellor has selected stretch to fill on the desktop properties for the photo when he made it the background image. Looking at it would give Prompto a headache, but then again, it’s hard to see it through the seven hundred thousand files littering the desktop. 

“Yes, why?”

“Ah. No reason.” Prompto wonders what the chances are of Izunia just leaving him to fix everything without staying and looking over his shoulder the whole time. If Prompto’s last visit is any indication, probably the same as Prompto becoming the next Niflheim Emperor. “So, uh, what’s the first thing we should take a look at?” 

“Well. First, I am having an Astral of a time saving this file.” 

He’s trying to make a new folder, and Prompto watches in horror as he clicks on the desktop to bring up the New Folder option, selects it, and then hunts-and-pecks for the keys and murmurs under his breath as he attempts to name it. 

The computer makes the signature nope, sorry, not happening chime and Izunia leans back, scowling. He waves a hand. “And this happens. It attempts to lecture me about character.” Before Prompto can tell him what he’s doing wrong, Izunia clicks off the folder – Prompto fights back a laugh when he sees it’s saved on the desktop, labeled as New Folder (321). 

How long has he been trying to do this? Since Prompto was twelve?

“Okay, so, the character thing just means you can’t use that backslash in the title.” 

Izunia blinks his golden eyes at Prompto, like an owl. 

“Right, so. Can I…?” He makes a motion for the mouse. People are sometimes weird about that. They'll be so eager to call IT, and then when Prompto shows up they cling to the chair, mouse and keyboard like a Tonberry holds a grudge. 

“Oh! Yes, by all means, go right ahead and drive if you like.” Izunia pushes back from his desk and relinquishes his chair with a wave of his hand. 

Right. The other thing about Izunia -- he says everything in this sly sort of voice, like it's meant as a pick-up line or bad porn dialogue. 

"Thanks." Prompto deletes the most recent New Folder, wincing despite himself when the Recycle bin declares it has 15789 items to be deleted. He wonders what Izunia’s email looks like, then decides he’d rather not know. 

“What did you want to call this folder?” 

“Ah. Well, I had intended to call it Vengeance-slash-Redemption Part Two.” 

Right. Okay. Sure. Prompto opens the New Folder dialogue while saying a quiet apology to the overloaded desktop, then types vengeance_redemption_part_two with the underscore. 

“That’s probably a better way to do it, see? That character can be used in filenames. The backslash can’t be.”

Izunia is leaning over his shoulder. “Ah. Yes, all right. Thank you.” 

“Sure.” Sadly, this is not the first time someone has called IT because they couldn’t make a folder using characters that the error message told them explicitly not to use. No one's ever named it something with the word vengeance in the title, though. 

Prompto gives the desktop a quick look-over, and maybe he's missing something but he doesn't see a folder called Vengeance-Slash-Redemption-Part-One and wonders if maybe that's something he should be worried about or not. 

“What else is giving you trouble?” He’s sort of afraid to ask.

“There appears to be a very…determined program that no matter how many times I drag the little icon to the trash can there, it simply reappears. Rather like magic.” 

Prompto goes very still for two reasons. One, the Recycle Bin clearly hasn’t been emptied since Prompto’s voice changed, and two, Izunia is…wow, the guy’s really close to him. Like, really close. Enough that one of his patterned scarves is sort of tickling the side of Prompto’s face. 

“Well, um. First I need to probably empty this.” He leans away a bit, not wanting to bat at the Chancellor’s scarves like an excited kitten. “That okay?” 

“Empty what, dear boy?” 

“The recycling bin?” Oh, no. “You know you … like you have to empty it? After you put things in it?” Maybe he shouldn't be asking everything like it’s a question. He has to be assertive! “You have to empty it after you put things in it.” 

“Oh, well, I daresay that’s the issue, then. How tiresome. I suppose I’m simply not used to taking out my own trash.” Izunia turns his head and smiles at him. It’s more of a smirk, really. Actually, Prompto thinks, it’s literally the picture that would be on the Wakapedia entry for smirk. “Someone else generally takes care of that for me.” 

“I’ll just…yeah.” Prompto wonders if he should ask Izunia if he needs any of these 15789 to-be-deleted items, decides he doesn’t care, and clicks Empty. 

“Does that say it shall take an hour to delete those unwanted files?” Izunia asks, sounding offended. “Empires have risen and fallen in less time than that.” 

“Not with that many Gigabytes, they haven’t,” Prompto jokes, but Izunia doesn’t laugh. Not a surprise. “Can I just clean up your desktop? Because, um. It’s making me anxious.” No lie, Prompto’s as wound up as a cheap watch. It’s the desktop and Izunia’s lack of interest in personal space, but Prompto can only fix one of those things.

“Well,” Izunia breathes, turning his head so now it’s his breath instead of his scarf that brushes against Prompto’s cheek and yeah, okay, he’d rather have the scarf, thanks. “We don’t want that, do we? Go right ahead.” 

It takes Prompto about twenty-five minutes to clean up the desktop. When he’s done, he finds that Izunia has a tendency to put every single file in its own separate folder, and he tries to spend some time explaining why folders are meant for more than one thing before he gives up. Izunia’s smirking at him in this way that suggests he knows this and is just playing along to make Prompto explain it. 

Which…why, though? Is tormenting an MT-reject IT guy really what this guy’s into? Probably not. If so, Prompto would have found a file folder for it by now. 

Prompto gets a few minutes reprieve when Izunia leaves him alone, long enough to return with a cup of coffee. For Prompto. And it’s – it’s like nothing in the world that Prompto’s ever tasted before, this coffee. It makes Aranea’s coffee taste like watered-down Snaga Soda. It is so good that Prompto wants to coo sweet nothings to it, stroke the side of the mug and promise it his everlasting love and devotion. 

“Lucian coffee,” Izunia says, pleasantly, as Prompto sips it like he’s trying to fuck it with his tongue. “Have you had it before?” 

Fear momentarily makes him dizzy as he thinks about last night, playing the illegal game and chatting off and on with his friend who was obviously a Lucian. What if somehow Izunia had found out about that?

This was all a trap! He knew it! That was the only way to explain this desktop….! 

“No, I haven’t,” Prompto says, clinging to the coffee cup. What the hell, if he was going down he was taking this coffee with him. And – Prompto took the mouse, navigated to Desktop Properties and changed the background from stretch to fill to fit. Yeah, he wasn’t going to his grave with that left untended. 

“Oh, that’s much better,” says Izunia. “You have a healer’s gift for technology, it would see, young Prompto.” 

“Yeah, I’m, uh. Real handy to have around,” Prompto says. So don’t, like, arrest me for playing King’s Knight with some Lucian kid. 

Gradually, his death grip on coffee and mouse eases as it is apparent that Izunia isn’t tricking him into anything. Prompto realizes as he shuffles things into various folders and subfolders that maybe he should ask how Izunia ended up with Lucian coffee, but what’s the point? Izunia is the Chancellor. He can actually go to Lucis if he wants. And not just to blow things up, either. 

Send him to Insomnia and give him ten minutes with the King’s desktop. We’d win the war in the time it took Regis to find his email application. 

It’s not easy to organize all Izunia’s files. For one, the Chancellor is right there, looming over him, with his dangling scarves and his resonant voice and his treacherous offer of more coffee. Prompto doesn’t necessarily think the man is hideous or anything like that – in fact, despite the flamboyant clothes and the messy hair, he’s actually quite handsome. He’s just unsettling, like the MT trying to do the finger-gun salute this morning. 

Like something that isn’t a human trying to be one.

Also, okay, he has the weirdest files. Prompto stares at a few that don’t seem to make sense – a schedule for the ferry boats between Altissia and Galdin Quay, .jpg images of Oracle Ascension coins, a map of steam valves in Lestallum, and email messages – Oh, Gods. He saves individual email messages on his desktop. I bet he prints them off, too. -- between himself and someone named Ravus. 

“Oh, be a dear and make a new folder for those emails, would you? Call it, hmmm, what’s a kind way to say this…potential extortion materials.” He gestures vaguely to the screen. He’s been watching Prompto work like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. “You can put those request for reimbursement forms from T. Drautos in there, too.” 

If Prompto were anyone else, he would keep his mouth shut. But he’s not, he’s – well, him – so he says, “Uh, you might want to call it something not so…um. Obvious?” 

“Well, I did think of that, but I do have quite a few plates spinning, dear Prompto.” He leans forward and taps the computer monitor screen. “That’s why I have four folders called tax information as I figured no one would ever bother horking – is that the word? – into something with so dull a name.” 

“Hacking,” Prompto corrects. “It’s called hacking.” 

Izunia beams at him. Prompto beams back, but then he feels like he just doused himself in cold, used cooking oil. 

“Yes, anyway, you see, I needed to immediately access something and I spent far too long searching through those files so I figured I should just call things what they were. Far easier that way, yes?” 

So they say, thinks Prompto. Why he’s not letting this go, though, he has no idea. You do not see a folder called potential extortion materials and ask questions. No. You just put the emails and the requests for reimbursement files in there, and you drink your forbidden coffee and you say nothing.

“You know, you might want to save these as PDFs instead of spreadsheets,” he hears himself saying, clicking on the request for reimbursement files. “I mean, if you don’t, people could just think you altered them.” 

“You’re so very helpful, but I don’t have a printer.” 

He does, though. It’s even on a printer stand next to his desk. There’s a scarf draped over it, and a layer of dust as old as Prompto. Prompto just goes in, makes the PDFs and then puts everything into the folder as requested. “You should probably password protect this, then. No one can get in that way.” He shows Izunia how to do that, and says, “What password do you want to use?” 

“Oh, use the same one I use for everything,” Izunia breezes. He waves over at a corkboard hanging next to his desk. On it, there’s a picture of King Regis Lucis Caelum with a funny mustache and devil horns drawn in red marker, a phone list that includes people who Prompto is fairly sure are dead and have been for a very long time, a note that says pick up more ink in the fanciest handwriting Prompto’s ever seen, and a post-it note that says – 

No. No

“Chancellor Izunia, please tell me that isn’t your password,” Prompto says, physically pained. 

“Hmm? Yes, that’s it, I needed something I could easily remember. Why?” 

Prompto doesn’t know what to say. He could go on, like he always does, about the importance of two-factor identification and also why every person on Eos should use a password manager -- especially the Imperial Chancellor who keeps blackmail material on his desktop -- and how if you weren’t going to do either of those things, the last thing you wanted to do was make your password something stupidly easily to guess and then use it for every single log-in you had. 

“Would you like more coffee, Prompto? Perhaps a sandwich? All that work must make you very hungry.”

A – a sandwich? On actual bread? Prompto’s eyes go huge. He’s heard about sandwiches. Lucianstar114, his online buddy, orders them all the time. Does Prompto want a sandwich? Gods, do chocobos want greens? 

OMG Can Chancellor Izunia get chocobos? Could he bring one to the office? What if I could pet it!

Best save that for the day Izunia needs to upgrade his operating system from Version 15 to Version 16. Even though Prompto will probably be dead by the time that one rolls out.

Prompto smiles brightly. “I’d love a sandwich, Chancellor, thank you,” he says, and even though everything in his entire soul rebels against it, Prompto sets the password on the blackmail folder as Ardyn1234 and tries not to die a little inside.

***

The sandwich is so good that Prompto thinks he might die. 

It’s definitely good enough that he just sighs inwardly when he sees the “little icon” that Izunia referred to, the one that he says keeps re-appearing over and over again despite his attempts to delete it. 

“So, this is probably the Ilios Virus,” Prompto says. He’s had three cups of coffee, right now he feels like he could fix anything -- Izunia’s computer, the mainframe servers in Zegnautus, the Empire’s budget problem and the whole thing where the snow from waking Shiva fucked up all the agriculture so they had to eat flavored plastic. 

“That sounds just dreadful,” Izunia says. He’s not eating a sandwich. Prompto hopes he didn’t steal his lunch or anything. Knowing the Empire, that’s probably punishable by death. “Ilios…as in, named after the civilization?” 

Most people don’t know that, but then again, this guy has a picture from old Solheim on his desktop, so. “Yeah. So, apparently there’s this story about how Solheim was fighting Ilios and it took like a literal decade, because Ilios had this wall around it and they couldn’t get through it. Which meant obviously that Solheim couldn’t sack the city. So they built this giant wooden horse, right, and left it there all, hey, peace out, have this thing. Which, is kinda lame, right, like who wants a giant wooden horse?” 

“It was meant as an offering to Bahamut,” Izunia says. 

Prompto blinks. “Really? I always wondered about that. Anyway, so the Solheim soldiers burst out of the horse while the Ilios…uh, Iliosians? were all drunk and partying, and fucked the place up. Er.” Prompto colors as he realizes he’s using totally inappropriate language in front of the Chancellor. “This virus is named for that, right, because it sneaks in unnoticed and then it, uh.” 

“Fucks the place up?” Izunia asks. 

Prompto gives a quick grin and nods. “Yeah. Which you know that saying, about never looking a gift horse in the mouth? It never made sense to me, right, ‘cause maybe Ilios should have looked in the gift horse and then they would’ve seen the Six-damned army waiting to murder them all while they were drunk.”

“To the victors go the spoils,” Izunia pronounces theatrically. “And the allegories.” 

Wow, too bad this guy’s not as good with computers as he is with words. And ancient history, apparently. “Someone should try that with Insomnia,” Prompto says, barely paying attention as he starts trying to find the virus. “May be the only way we’re gonna get past the wall. Not sure if they like horses that much, though.” OMG, what if it was a giant chocobo? Prompto wouldn’t be able to resist that, no way. Wooden or otherwise. 

“It didn’t work because it was a horse, my dear Prompto. It worked because it was symbolic of something they wanted.” 

Prompto glances up, and the look on Izunia’s face is – well, it’s sort of terrifying? His eyes are cold and there’s this twist to his mouth that makes Prompto want to shove his desk chair back and run away. “Oh. Uh. What was that?” It seems like he should ask. Izunia doesn’t seem the type to appreciate letting a chance to monologue go to waste. 

“Peace,” he says, simply. “It was a symbol of peace that brought their ruin.” 

“Huh. That’s, like, ironic,” says Prompto. “Right?”

“Indeed,” says Izunia. He smiles in a way that makes Prompto nervous, because it’s less theatrical and flirtatious and more…well, this is the Chancellor and there’s a lot of rumors about him, and Prompto in that moment believes all of them. 

Prompto clicks around and brings up the adware, which immediately begins spamming him with all kinds of suggestions for video downloaders, streaming services, totally legit copies of Photoshop and offers to invest in cheap Bitgil. 

And pornography, of course. Prompto blushes to the tips of his hair when the first window pops open, promising, Hot MILFs want to fuck you! He closes out of the pop-up quickly, before Izunia can ask him what a MILF is. He does not get paid enough to explain porn to the Chancellor. 

“So that’s what your virus is doing, it’s hidden in the computer, basically, and all these ads and stuff are the soldiers. Just deleting the icon won’t help since it’s in the code.” Prompto clicks some more. “We’ll have to clean some registry files.” 

“Fascinating,” Izunia murmurs, back to flirtatious. “You poor thing, your shoulders must get terribly sore, hunched over like this all day.” 

Before he can do anything – protest, run away, hide under the desk – the Chancellor moves to stand behind him, and his hands are on Prompto’s shoulders. “I can do this much for you in thanks for your hard work, at least.” 

Prompto would rather have another sandwich, to be honest, or some peace and quiet to work. He tries not to tense up even more as Izunia starts rubbing his shoulders. The guy does have the hands to give a massage, at least – they’re big and his fingers are strong, expertly picking out the sore muscles with unerring accuracy. It’s kind of….well. Painful more than relaxing. 

“Thanks, uh, you don’t really have to do that,” Prompto squeaks, his face red. 

HOT TWINKS WANT TO CALL YOU DADDY ONLY .02 MILES AWAY!!! CALL NOW LIVE CAM SHOW!!!! 

“Oh, but I insist,” Izunia purrs, as Prompto closes the next ad. “It’s no bother at all.” 

Prompto breathes in, then out, then counts to ten. The registry cleaner he installed when he had to get rid of the Moogle Redirect Virus is still there, but it needs to be updated. The virus peppers him with some more ads as he waits, with Izunia’s massage feeling more like an invasion than a relief. 

It’s like he’s the computer and Izunia is the virus. Or he’s the poor Ilios citizen walking around all drunk and happy that the war ended, taking a selfie by the stupid horse and then, bam! Here comes Izunia out of the horse, garbed like a Solheim soldier of old, lopping his head off with a sword.

FREE VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE, the next ad proclaims. 

Prompto closes it, then the next, then the next, clicking on the red x and making little gun sounds like he’s a sharpshooter and they’re his targets. 

Take that, sneaky Solheim soldiers, he thinks, then wonders why he’s siding with Ilios in this convoluted metaphor he’s created. They’re always saying Niflheim is the direct descendant of the Solheim Empire, so technically he should be all proud that his ancestors got away with that sneaky horse trick, right? 

Except he isn’t, and he feels kind of bad for tricking the Ilios. Even though the parallel is clear – walled city, war that won’t end, frustrated soldiers, etc – he kind of wants to go home and tell that Lucian kid he’s been chatting with not to fall for any sudden gestures of goodwill from the Empire. Which is dumb, really, because it’s not like the guy could really do anything, right? Still. 

It’s maybe the thought that counts. 

Speaking of. 

Prompto turns to look up at Izunia, who is smiling down at him like he really is one of those Solheim soldiers who just sprung out of the horse, with a whole city full of unarmed drunks to slaughter. 

“You’re still. Um. Using Iron Bangle, that’s probably how you got this virus. You should really be using the Mythril browser, it’s way more secure. If not that, then at least FireBomb. Harder for the viruses to get in that way. I’m going to take the desktop icon for Iron Bangle away and replace it with Mythril, okay? That way you won’t be tempted to use it.” 

“Do your worst,” Izunia purrs, and his massage is sort of…not quite as painful, but just as uncomfortable. “I can take it, I assure you.” 

***

In addition to getting Izunia away from an outdated browser, Prompto talks him out of wanting a new printer (because he would totally be that guy who printed all his emails, then called Prompto to fix a paper jam and put the ink cartridge in wrong or something), shows him how to make things into a PDF, and convinces him to change his password from “Ardyn1234” to “ALC1234”, which isn’t that much better even though Ardyn swears no one will ever guess what it stands for. 

“So is that all?” Prompto asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. Being in this room with Izunia for this long is making him feel weird. Izunia isn’t…that bad, not really. He’s not Besithia, who says everything like he’s practicing for a role in Bad Guy: The Movie and who kind of smells like cloves and garbage that’s been in the sun a few hours. But Izunia’s a presence, tall and broad-shouldered and dressed in so many layers that it’s like he’s got wings or something. 

Prompto can’t get away from him. He’s right there when Prompto’s in the chair working, and he’s a hundred percent sure Izunia is staring at his ass when he climbs under the desk to check a few connections.

“Why, it looks as if I’ve taken up your whole day,” Izunia says, sounding so insincere that Prompto is hard-pressed not to snort. “You must be famished, dear boy. Would you like some dinner? I can have a truly delicious steak dinner delivered to my rooms.” The way he’s looking at Prompto makes Prompto think he’s the steak dinner. 

The thing is, Prompto has been asked out before by someone whose computer he’s fixed. Sometimes it’s an expression of gratitude, sometimes it’s out of actual interest, but most of the time it’s because they have a laptop at home that’s not quite working right. The thing about Izunia is, it’s impossible to tell which of those are the motivating factor for this invitation. 

“Nah, I still have half my sandwich,” Prompto says, trying for chipper. He’s sort of been…backed up against the door, which, huh, when did that close? Izunia has one hand up on the door and is smiling down at him, and Prompto is…trapped. “I should really get back to my office.” 

Izunia smiles at him. If malware was a person, Prompto thinks, it’d be this guy. “How disappointing. Well, I’m sure I shall see you again soon, hmm?” Izunia gives him one last, lingering look and pulls away. 

Prompto doesn’t doubt that, and he tries not to let the despair show on his face. It’s less for Izunia’s flirting and more for whatever horrible thing he’s going to do to his computer next, and how the desktop will look. But it’s also partly because of Izunia’s flirting, because wow, this guy is so weird. 

It’s actually after five by the time Prompto escapes, so he bypasses his office and goes home instead. His place is called an “apartment” but it’s basically just a room with a kitchenette, a small bathroom with a one-person shower, and his bed. He bundles up under a nest of blankets with the second half of his sandwich and pull out his phone. He thumbs open the King’s Knight application and navigates to the chat function to send a message to Lucianstar114. 

Quicksilver3234: omg the day I just had :|
Lucianstar114: busy? 
Quicksilver3234: remember last week when I had 2g2 that dudes office who awkwardly hits on me >> 
Lucianstar114: oh no you mean the one whos like a VP in your company?
Quicksilver3234: yeah I had to go back today :( he gave me a massage :|||||
Lucianstar114: …. 
Lucianstar114: can you like report him or something 
Lucianstar114: like does your company not have rules against that??
Quicksilver3234: no not really 
Lucianstar114: huh. I thought that was like a kingdom-wide law or smthng? Ill have 2 ask my dad
Quicksilver3234: its not that kind of company :/ 
Quicksilver3234: and whats your dad do is he like a lawyer or smthng?
Lucianstar114: uh
Lucianstar114: more like
Lucianstar114: he’s in charge of human resources 
Quicksilver3234: too bad he cant be in charge of my company’s human resources lmao
Quicksilver3232: hey lets say someone sent u a giant wooden chocobo what would you do 
Lucianstar114: lmao what? 
Quicksilver3234: like would you bring it in your house or
Lucianstar114: no? lol that’s so random dude 
Quicksilver3234: just checking 

***

The next day, there’s a package of finely-ground Lucian coffee on his desk and a hand-written thank-you note from Izunia. Of a sort. 

“What a thing was this, too, which that mighty man wrought and endured.” My thanks for your invaluable assistance with the pesky Ilios virus. A. Izunia. 

Prompto types the quote into Moogle. It’s from some old epic about the Ilios Horse. Which doesn’t make any sense, but really, what about Izunia makes sense? 

He hides the coffee, tacks the note up on his desk because it’s pretty, and gets back to work. He has a help ticket from Ravus Nox Fleuret that his printer is jammed, and somehow, Prompto doesn’t think he’s gonna get a sandwich out of this one.