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He takes no pleasure in startling the red-headed executive as he storms into her office, metaphorical guns blazing.

“Zanzo you bastard! ”

Okay, maybe a little bit.

A gust of very spicy air crashes directly past his ear into the wall, and it’s only his expert dodging (read: posing) skills that save him from a rather unfortunate fate.

“Hello Korsica,” he says merrily, brushing himself off.

Korsica puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story. I need to see the cameras.” He steps toward the console, but Korsica moves in front of him, arms crossed. She’s shorter than him, sure, but he’s definitely certain she could take him easily in a fight. He lets out a dramatic sigh.

“Why are you here, Zanzo?” she asks again, her tone unrelenting.

“Look, if you must know,” he crosses one hand over to rest on his hip and leans his other elbow on his wrist. “I spent all of my budget yesterday.”

“The quarter started yesterday!” Korsica sputters. “Wh– what on Earth did you spend it on?”

“Aquatic robots!” he states proudly. “Well, lava -quatic, as I call them. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my maintenance crew falling into–”

“And why does this have anything to do with me?” she interrupts.

“Because,” Zanzo mutters, “Roquefort hasn’t tried to call me about it.” Korsica gives him a bewildered stare. He can’t quite parse what she’s confused about. “So?”

She blinks. “So… what?”

He tries to maneuver around her. “I need to see where Roquefort is.” But unfortunately a hand on his chest stops him.

“Why? Just because he didn’t call you?” Korsica clicks her tongue. “That’s called unhealthy dependence Zanzo.”

“No, ” he insists. “I don’t care if Roquefort calls me. Or emails me. But not even a strongly worded text?” Zanzo gives her a meaningful look. “Korsica, I spent over 200,000 of the company’s funds within the span of twenty four hours and got no reprimand of any sort.” Zanzo shrugs, letting his arms fall to his sides. “He’s probably dead.”

Korsica pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yeah. No. Yeah, you’re right. Let’s check on him.”

“Thank you.”

“Why is it that every time there’s an issue between you two, I end up being the one in the middle?”

Zanzo furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

He follows her over to the console, peering over her shoulder as she flicks through the cameras until she pulls up the ones in Roquefort’s office. As lavish as the place is, it’s unnaturally lacking a certain stuck up executive.

“He could just be busy,” Korsica says.

“Check his usual spots,” Zanzo insists, pointing to the cameras in the company safe. Korsica sighs but amuses him. He scans the piles of gold for movement. “Not there.” He points to the hallway outside of Kale’s office. Korsica looks up at him.

“What?” he says. “Roquefort spends hours outside that place.”

“You guys are so weird,” she mutters, changing the camera. “Why do you even know that?”

Zanzo grins. “There are some things you’ll never know about me.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

The camera switches over and Zanzo’s shoulders droop when no one familiar is sitting on the bench in the hall. “Damn it. What about–”

Korsica switches the camera over again, and Zanzo’s eyes widen.

“Where is that? ”

She glances at him. “Roquefort’s bedroom? Obviously I don’t watch this camera often… well, ever, actually.”

“He has a bedroom? ”

“Yes?”

Zanzo sighs. “Of course he does.” He scans the image. At first, there’s nothing really to find. It’s a new setting for Zanzo, so he spends a bit of time sneering at the lavish furniture and unnecessary amount of windows. But something moves off to one side of the bed, and Zanzo sees a small tuft of graying hair sticking out from under the covers.

“What the hell?” Korsica says exactly what he’s thinking, and clicks a few buttons. The image zooms in. As if on cue, Roquefort hacks a very loud and prolonged cough, before groaning and turning in bed again. Zanzo notices a glass of water and some medicine on the side table next to him.

“Is he…” he squints. “Sick?”

Korsica leans back in her chair. “I guess so.”

Zanzo frowns. “So not dead. Bummer.”

He turns on his heel and stalks back toward the door.

“Zanzo, where are you going?”

He waves a hand dismissively. “To get back to work!”

“But you’ve spent all your budget!”

He smiles at her over his shoulder. “Well, Roquefort’s sick. Surely he won’t notice a little increase in spending.”

And with that, he sweeps out of the office leaving a sputtering Korsica behind him.

—

After about 25 more robot ideas being sent over to production, Zanzo finds his mind filled with something other than work. He catches it quickly, managing to unplug before any weird thoughts get stuffed into the production line. But, unfortunately, now he has to sit with them.

He glances at his company phone, almost fooling himself into thinking the screen will light up any second with an incoming call.

But after staring at it for five straight minutes he can’t take it anymore.

That’s how he finds himself on the elevator up to Finance. He doesn’t like how bright the atrium is; he’s even less fond of the beginnings of a statue being built up bit by bit in the center. The worst part is those pointless mirrors on the wall across from the elevator that blind him every time he comes up this way–

Wait a moment…

Zanzo looks at the mirrors. It’s irritating with the glare, but he can see an odd warp to them. Also, they really don’t seem to be serving any purpose. He scans the area around them. A walkway spans this floor, but stops at the wall where the mirrors are connected. There should honestly be an entire room there…

The elevator dings.

Zanzo makes his way past the door to Finance and walks swiftly across the walkway toward the mirror wall. Sure enough, there’s an ornate gold double doorway coming up fast. It practically screams Roquefort.

He knocks, but really only out of half-assed propriety before just walking in after he hears more coughing in response. Sure enough, Roquefort’s bedroom is behind the wall of mirrors, which Zanzo can now identify as one-way glass. Of course, the man has a view and privacy all in one. He begins to count the amount of inventions he could make with how much this room obviously costs.

“Zanzo?” comes a hoarse voice from behind him. He realizes he’d been staring out the windows and brooding. So, he spins around to greet the room’s occupant.

“I was hoping you’d died!” he pouts. “But here you are, just sickly and old.”

“I’m barely five years older than you.”

“And you sure do look it,” he retorts, making his way over to the (insanely lavish) bed. “So what’s this about?”

Roquefort squints at him. “What’s what about?”

Zanzo gestures in his general direction. Roquefort turns to put his back to Zanzo.

“Fuck off.”

“Contrary to what you likely believe, I didn’t come here just to bother you.”

“Then why are you here?” he gets in response. It makes Zanzo pause.

Why is he here?

“Why are you… in my bedroom?” Roquefort pauses, before turning to look over his shoulder at Zanzo. “How did you find my bedroom?”

“My incredible deductive reasoning skills,” Zanzo says proudly. Roquefort squints at him again.

“Korsica?”

“Yes, Korsica. And my incredible deductive reasoning–”

“Deductive reasoning skills, sure.”

Zanzo blinks at the mundanity of the retort. Roquefort simply sighs and turns his head back into the pillow, and Zanzo is left uncharacteristically speechless. He doesn’t really know how to handle neutral conversation with the man.

“I spent all of the R&D budget yesterday.”

Roquefort sits up immediately and fixes him with a glare. “You what– ” he immediately goes into a coughing fit, and Zanzo feels even worse for some reason.

“Don’t cough up a lung over it,” he says watching Roquefort flounder for the water that’s just a bit too far out of his reach. He sweeps over without thinking and grabs it, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing it into Roquefort’s hands. It’s only once Roquefort’s fingers touch his that he realizes what he did.

He retracts his hand and lets the man fumble with it, but he manages to catch it anyway. Coordinated bastard. Roquefort takes a long sip, but still manages to fix Zanzo with a chilling glare.

“How did you spend all of your budget in one day– ”

Zanzo plucks the glass out of Roquefort’s hands before the man shatters it and places it (a bit closer than before) onto the night table. “Talent,” he says lightly.

“Oh,” Roquefort huffs. “That talent of course is being unendurable. ”

“That, and all these great ideas up here,” he grins, tapping his head.

Roquefort closes his eyes and takes a short breath. He clears his throat. Zanzo waits patiently for the reprimand.

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take that into consideration next quarter.”

Zanzo blinks dumbly. That’s it?

“That’s it?”

Roquefort looks at him tiredly. “What’s it?”

“You’re not going to yell at me? Or threaten to get me fired? Or grab me by the collar and say you’re going to kill me?”

Roquefort blinks. Zanzo watches one of his hands slowly lift to clutch Zanzo’s wide collar lightly. “M’gonna kill your stupid ass,” the man mumbles, before letting go and falling back onto his pillows. “Tomorrow.”

Zanzo lets out an exasperated noise. “I hate this.”

Roquefort hums. “The one thing we agree on.”

He huffs and stands, before scouring the room for… there. A connected bathroom.

“What are you doing?” he hears just before the sink starts running. Zanzo grabs a folded cloth from a shelf above the sink and throws it under the water. He waits for it to soak before turning off the faucet and picking the now wet cloth with the tips of his fingers. He carries it into the room and drops it unceremoniously on Roquefort’s head.

“Get better,” he snaps. “It’s boring down there when you’re not constantly reprimanding me.” He snaps his fingers. “And I’ll get one of the service bots to bring up soup or something. Don’t bother telling me if you’re allergic to anything, I don’t care.”

Roquefort slowly lifts the wet cloth and looks over at Zanzo with a confused look. “You…”

“Nope,” he interrupts, recognizing the expression on Roquefort’s face as, ugh, grateful. He’s definitely going to make sure they put everything anyone has ever been allergic to in Roquefort’s soup. “The next words you say to me better be ‘what the fuck have you done now?’ over text message or a phone call. See you tomorrow!” With that he leaves as swiftly as he’d entered. He definitely doesn’t order a regular chicken noodle soup and some crackers, and he really doesn’t remember going all the way back up himself to deliver the food, only to find the insufferable man fast asleep with the least tense expression Zanzo has ever seen him wear.

None of that happened. And if Korsica saw anything? Well, maybe Zanzo would have a very brief visit to Security.