good times, riches, sonuvabitches
So many things have happened to make this belated Secret Santa gift...so happy day after Christmas to conflicted-in-wonderland, and this is a submission so I have no idea how to @ or tag this. BUT this can also be read over at ffnet, just in case the format turns out wonky.
This started out for the prompt of a Prince and the Pauper AU, but I tried putting a twist on it and then it got out of hand. THANK YOU for your continued beautiful contributions to this lovely rarepair, and hope your holiday season is going well!!
good times, riches, sonuvabitches
Lovino knew that shit was about to go down when he came in to work (at precisely 7:30, which was a godawful time to even be thinking about being awake, much less at work) and his phone was already ringing. His phone ringing was never good. On the plus side, his boss — Utley —wasn’t in yet, so it was unlikely it was him on the other end with yet another unreasonable and smarmy request. So he sighed, put down his coffee, and answered the phone.
“Oh shit, someone actually answered!” came an all-too-chipper voice through the headset. Lovino briefly pulled the phone away from his face and closed his eyes, already able to tell this was a capital M capital P Morning Person. Ughhh.
“Yes, I answered my phone, because it was ringing,” he said pointedly once he’d collected himself.
“Oh yeah I tried a bunch of random phone numbers already but you’re the first to pick up. I guess not a lot of people are in at this time?”
There was literally no one else on Lovino’s floor.
“Is this a prank call?” he asked, much more politely than he was thinking in his head.
“Whoops, no, it’s not! I need someone to help me out with something, and it’s kind of important? I figured anyone who was willing to here this early would be exactly the kind of person for the job, but I guess there’s not a lot…”
Lovino held back a groan. Great. He’d been here for less than five minutes and already someone had a task for him. “I’d love to help,” he said, maybe a bit too dryly because the person on the other end picked up on it.
“You sure, dude? You don’t have to.”
He stopped, took a breath, and tried to think about what his brother had told him about self-sabotaging. “No, I can do it,” he finally said. “Just...haven’t gotten through my coffee yet.”
“Yeah, I get that!” was the reply, sounding like a person who’d never needed caffeine in their life. “Well come on up to the top floor, I’ll meet you up here!” And then they hung up.
Lovino put the phone down, mind suddenly racing. The top floor? As in the floor where all bigwigs hung out? Who the hell would be calling down here from all the way up there?
Only one way to find out, he decided, and downed his coffee.
He headed for the elevator.
The person who had called, it turned out, was named Alfred — a fact that Lovino learned as soon as he exited the elevator from a very loud and very enthusiastic voice. He was so taken aback that it actually took him a moment to visually process the person standing in front of him. The guy was blonde, wearing glasses, and seemed to be fairly well-built under the ridiculous T-shirt he was wearing, featuring a screen-printed Errol Flynn with his stupid distinctive mustache.
Seriously, did they just let the people on the top floor dress however the hell they wanted?
Aside from the terrible fashion sense, he was actually pretty good looking. Not that it mattered to Lovino, who just wanted to know what awful task he was being setting up for now.
“Did you get your coffee? I got some more if you want.”
Lovino considered it. Top floor coffee was tempting, but really he just wanted to know what he’d been called up for. So: “No, not at the moment. Thank you, though. What was it you needed help with?”
Alfred looked almost disappointed, but soon enough he was smiling again, although a bit sheepishly. “Right, that. It’s gonna sound like a really weird request.”
“Okaaaay,” he said warily.
“You know that big meeting happening down in Florida the day after tomorrow?”
He sure did. Everyone who was anyone was going — so basically, all of higher management was having a “conference” down in the Florida keys while some important CEO meeting happened between seven of the top-ranking companies on the East coast. Utley had been rubbing it in everyone’s faces for weeks that he was going.
“Well, it’s about the actual meeting, between the big seven. I need someone to present some information at that meeting, someone reliable and who’d be able to answer questions about the information, so like, someone who knows a lot about what we do and has a good head on their shoulders, and I know it’s usually the ground-level guys who can answer the questions like logistics, what actually needs to get done…”
True, and gratifying to hear acknowledged, but. “Isn’t that meeting between the CEOs of these companies, though? Do you mean you need someone to give this information to Mr. Jones before the meeting?” He glanced at the double doors at the end of the hall, which had a plaque reading Jones, A. F. The mysterious CEO of their company — no one seemed to actually know what he looked like, just that he had a head for business and finances. When he looked back, Alfred was giving him a funny look.
“Right...um, well. This would actually be a job that involved. Um.” He looked at the ceiling and rolled his head back and forth nervously, like he was trying to crack his neck.
Lovino took pity on him. “I’ve been asked to do all kinds of off-the-wall things,” he told him. “Just tell me.”
“Okay, well, it would involve...pretending to be the CEO at the meeting and presenting all the information yourself,” he said quickly.
Alfred chuckled weakly. “Uh, yeah. Y’know, the dude’s just been an isolationist so long, right? And he’s super nervous about this, and it’s not like any of these guys knows what he looks like, so why not get someone else to do that part?” He phrased it like he was actually asking, so Lovino gave him an incredulous look.
Alfred hurried to continue. “And obviously you’d be paid for the trouble, and you’d be doing him a huge favor, so....” He trailed off and looked at Lovino expectantly.
“Where’d you say that coffee was?” he asked in lieu of an answer.
“Oh! Right over here.” Alfred motioned to an open doorway. Lovino walked through in a daze and briefly noted that what appeared to be a break room wasn’t that much bigger than the one on his own floor, except fewer people used this one. And it had a really super nice Keurig. “Is it okay if I use this?” he murmured, pointing at the bag of coffee grounds and the resuable K-cups beside the machine.
While he waited for the coffee maker to warm up and brew his coffee, Lovino turned and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms as he thought. Alfred imitated his position, crossing his arms and tilting his head as he looked at Lovino consideringly, and also, thankfully, not saying anything.
“I guess none of these big seven guys know what Mr. Jones looks like either,” he mused.
Alfred shook his head, smiling vaguely.
“How long is this meeting supposed to be? Not that I’ve decided I’m doing it yet or anything.”
“In theory about an hour, it really is just a show-and-tell kind of thing to compare notes on trends and stuff. These are all guys we’ve been friendly with in the past but we’re trying to strengthen relationships, y’know? And like, I’m really not trying to pressure you here, if you don’t wanna do it I’m sure that uh, Mr. Jones can suck it up but he really really doesn’t want to.”
Lovino raised an eyebrow.
This seemed to stop him short.
“Personal reasons?” he tried, weakly.
Lovino bristled. “‘Personal reasons’ better not mean ‘I think I can foist all my work off on my poor underpaid and overworked minions because I wanna vacation in the Florida keys —”
“No!” Alfred interjected. “Really, it’s not that. Um. Anxiety kinda runs in the family? And I, uh, well I heard his brother has it even worse even though it would be super convenient if he could do it because they’re twins, actually, and it’s dumb because Jones is a cheerful enough dude, I feel like he does well enough interacting with people but for some reason it’s just the idea of going to this meeting —”
This time Lovino was the one who interrupted. “Well, anxiety doesn’t always work out in a way that’s convenient! You should know better, honestly, who talks about their boss like that?” This was conveniently ignoring the shit he’d said about his boss, but Utley didn’t have anxiety, he was just an asshole.
Alfred blinked. “Right. Sorry.” He seemed genuinely sheepish, so Lovino let it go. For now.
“How extensive do you think the Q&A session would be?” he asked.
“With seven people there all trying to talk about their own accomplishments, shouldn’t be too long.”
“Yeah, except we want to impress everyone not just sit there in silence.”
“Haha, yeah, ideally. But we could have a plan to like, extract you if you needed an out.” He perked up. “Oh man, ‘extraction,’ makes it sound like a secret mission, right?”
Lovino rolled his eyes and picked up his coffee, taking a sip.
“Okay, I made up my mind. I’ll do it if you put one of these coffeemakers in the lounge on my floor. Lord knows we need one down there”
“Done!” Alfred said immediately, like he was afraid Lovino would take it back.
“Done,” he repeated. And stared at Alfred for a second. “So, do you have the information for me to look over or…?”
“Oh, yeah, I pulled some stuff together for you to look at, you can tell me what else you think you’ll need.”
Well at least he wouldn’t have to do that himself. This was probably the weirdest thing he’d ever done, but already it beat the hell out of the work he usually did.
The next day, he was on a plane to Florida.
Lovino ended up being chauffeured — chauffeured, damn he could get used to this — to a restaurant on Key West, where the meeting was being held in a private room above the bar. Alfred was texting him nonstop the entire ride, which usually would have been annoying but the man was so earnest and nice that Lovino couldn’t really bring himself to be annoyed. Even if the guy did use an unnatural amount of emojis.
He was the first one there, and the staff had already put a bunch of food on the side table, so he took some pictures of some truly beautiful sliders that he sent fo Alfred before he put his phone away, munching on a caprese skewer as he looked over some of his last minute notes.
He’d spent the entirety of yesterday with Alfred, going over graphs and charts and all kinds of information collected into easy-to-digest yet impressive tidbits for the other CEOs. Some of the information had been outdated, from what Lovino had seen on the floor, and he’d made Alfred update it accordingly. Also some of the graphs were just confusing, so he’d edited those, as well. But all in all, the info provided had been excellently organized; “of course,” Alfred had said, “I wasn’t going to ask you to do all that after asking a huge favor like two days beforehand!” Which was more consideration than he got from his own boss, so that was nice.
He was feeling pretty confident, until the door opened and his brother walked in.
And then Beilschmidt walked in behind him, and everything got even worse.
“Feliciano, why is your brother here?”
Lovino groaned, pulled out his phone, and opened his conversation with Alfred.
Hey about that thing you said about underpaid and overworked minions, Alfred’s last text read. He ignored that in favor of sending, Well this is a fucking mess
He immediately got a reply: oh god do you need an extraction???
No, just going to have to talk to you afterwards
That sounds super ominous :((((
Feliciano had started making confused noises so he put his phone away without answering and started on damage control.
Because of course. He’d been so focused on the information he was presenting, he’d forgotten that his fucking twin was the assistant to one of the CEOs attending the goddamn meeting. God he was an idiot.
But he plastered on a fake smile — which was enough to make Feliciano recoil warily, but Beilschmidt didn’t know any better — and started bullshitting.
“I’m Mr. Jones’s assistant,” he told them. “He got food poisoning so I’m here in his place.”
“You’re going to be giving his presentation, then?” another voice came from the doorway. Kirkland, if Lovino remembered correctly from his prep. “Bit rude to send an assistant to a meeting like this.”
Lovino grit his teeth and kept smiling. “Beilschmidt brought his.” And he just happened to be his brother. Dammit.
“Yes, well, he’s not the one giving the presentation, ‘izzee?”
“Well, food poisoning, it can’t be helped, non?” Bonnefoy had arrived, and was examining the food suspiciously.
Kirkland opened his mouth, no doubt to complain some more, but Lovino beat him to it. “I assure you I’m well-prepared to present this information.”
There was some minor grumbling, but no one else objected. The last of the bigshots filed into the room. Braginsky actually started eating the food, despite Bonnefoy’s protests, while Wang and Honda looked on in what looked like either mild disgust or vague amazement.
His brother kept trying to get his attention, tugging on his sleeve and whispering, “When did you get promoted? Why didn’t you tell me, fratello?”
“Not now,” he hissed back. Then he addressed the room. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Afterwards, he met Alfred at Ernest Hemingway’s house. The man was crouched next to a bush in the backyard, petting a six-toed cat. His other hand was clenched on the bottom of his T-shirt, loosening and tightening reflexively.
“Hey, quit that,” Lovino told him as he approached. “You’ll wrinkle your..” he looked closer, “Star Trek shirt?”
It said, in large letters and no accompanying picture: BEAM ME SOMEWHERE MR. SCOTT. What a weirdo.
Alfred startled and made to get up, but Lovino beat him to the punch and sat down instead, reaching out to pet the cat, who seemed thrilled to have two people’s attention on her.
“How’d it go?” Alfred asked, seeming scared of the answer.
“Well. They didn’t think I was Jones, because it turns out that my brother was there as Beilschmidt’s assistant. And we’re twins, so that one wasn’t getting explained away. So I told them he was sick and gave his presentation anyway.”
Alfred sighed. “I guess it’s for the best? I was thinking about it and I’d have to send you in his place every time we met with these guys in order to keep up the lie. Not really my best plan.”
Lovino nodded. “Shame, though,” he said with a barely contained smile. “Because I was really good.”
Alfred looked up at him and grinned. “Yeah?”
And he sounded genuinely excited about it, which made Lovino’s grin come out full-force. “Yeah, I fucking aced it.”
“Nice!” Alfred exclaimed, and offered his palm for a high five. Lovino indulged him.
They smiled at each other for a few moments, but were interrupted by the last voice Lovino wanted to hear right now.
“Why the hell are you down here?” Utley demanded, strolling up with a posse of his insufferable friends (who were also higher management demons). “I know you weren’t invited to the conference, I would have seen you at the orientation this morning. And you definitely don’t have the vacation time to have taken a trip just to follow your betters here.”
“Who,” Alfred cut in, “are you?”
“Who are you? With Vargas, are you?”
“Alfred,” he introduced himself mildly. “I’m with the Jones company.”
“Mike Utley, junior second-level assistant manager.” He paused to preen. “I haven’t seen you around before, but if you’re associating with Vargas you must be another one of the peons. Honestly, the shitty quality of the people we hire never ceases to amaze.”
“All the work I’ve seen so far from Lovino has been excellent,” Alfred said, and although he was still speaking calmly and politely, Lovino got the strong sense the guy was pissed. Actually it was kind of hot.
Utley sniffed dismissively. “I’m sure you think so, but as his supervisor I can tell you his work really is abysmal. I’d find a better role model if I were you.” He turned and walked off without another word.
Alfred stared after him. “What an asshole!” he exclaimed after a minute of silence.
“That guy is your boss?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah. He’s pretty typical for that management level, unfortunately.”
Alfred huffed and resumed petting the cat, who had been plaintively nudging at his stationary hand.
“We’ll see about that,” he muttered. “Hey, how would you feel about a promotion?”
Lovino laughed, not sure if he was being serious. “Gonna put in a good word for me with Jones?”
Alfred looked at him blankly, so Lovino prompted, “Your boss? The CEO?”
“Oh, right. Seriously, though, would you want to be in a higher position? Like, managerial?”
Jesus, he wasn’t joking. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“Nah, I figure that meeting counts as a trial-by-fire interview, right? You’ve definitely proved you’re more than competent. And you’ve basically dressed for an interview, too, right?”
He had dressed nicely, like how he thought a CEO would.
“I just, I mean, you look real good?” Alfred offered, crooking a half-grin at him.
And, oh. That was an awfully sweet smile.
“This coming from a guy who seems to always wear shitty T-shirts,” he grumbled.
The next week, he was back on his own floor. He and his coworkers were all at their desks, sharing looks and grimaces as Utley’s voice drifted through the door to his office, complaining as usual.
The elevator opened, and Alfred stepped out. His T-shirt read, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SALT SHAKER? Lovino had just enough time to roll his eyes before Alfred hopped up on a desk and cleared his throat.
“I have an announcement!” he announced, very loudly. He waited a few seconds for Utley to emerge, giving him a pointed look but continuing before the man could launch into a tirade.
“My name,” he said, “is Alfred F. Jones. You all work for me, and can I just say, I really appreciate it, because everything I’ve seen coming out of this department has been excellent.”
Lovino’s jaw actually dropped, because wait, what?
And more importantly— he stole a glance at Utley, who’d gone ashen. Oh my god.
“And while you’ve all been doing awesome, it’s come to my attention that there have been some managerial issues, so I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m going to be doing a review of some of the positions on this floor and the others.” The beautiful bastard actually turned and smiled at Utley while he said it. Lovino’s coworkers started whispering frantically amongst themselves, but he was too caught up in watching Alfred’s performance to join them.
“Helping me do that,” the CEO continued, “will be my new COO, and my brother, that’s President Williams if you don’t know, tells me that stands for chief operating officer, which is very exciting, I’ve never had one before.” He beamed down at the crowd, who were all staring at him in disbelief.
“Oh yeah, and the COO is gonna be Lovino Vargas.”
Alfred jumped off the desk and made his way to Lovino, who was standing stock-still in shock. He gently guided him towards the elevator with a warm hand on his shoulder — past Utley, who had sat down with his head in his hands, and past all of his coworkers, who congratulated him and cheered as they went by.
Once they were safe in the elevator, Alfred gave him a shy smile. “Was that too dramatic? Mattie said I should just ask you normally but I thought it would super cool that way.”
“When you asked if I wanted a promotion I figured you meant something like an assistant, not…” He trailed off but collected himself. “Mattie is your brother? You mentioned a twin?”
“Yep, that’s him! And, uh, I’m sorry about the whole thing where I didn’t tell you who I was, I just, I got nervous, and uh.” He stopped and shrugged. “It was nice just being Alfred for a while.”
“What does the F stand for?” Lovino asked suddenly.
“Hm? Oh, uh, nothing, actually. My middle name actually starts with a D, but I wanted to put Jones AF on my business cards, so…”
Lovino laughed, which made Alfred visibly relax.
“I think we’ll make great partners,” Lovino told him.
And standing there with Alfred smiling at him, hopeful about his future for the first time in a long while, he thought he might mean that in more ways than one.
