Work Text:
When Fabian tells the Bad Kids about how the Shellford built an interplanar radio in his house, Riz gets a few ideas.
The first idea is that he can call his dad and check on current cases. It’s not that easy to technically be working for people but unable to receive work commands from them, so having some sort of phone thing would come in handy. He could actually do something for the agency instead of talking to his dad’s grave and hoping that something he says is good information.
Someone could always interfere with the radio channels, though. That’s a big liability in using a radio for undercover missions. Riz shelves that idea somewhere into the mess he calls his mind.
He could still use it to talk to his dad casually. Although, Riz has learned that he’s not very good at talking to his parents casually. He’s always thinking of some case, and he’s terrible at resisting the urge to ask about it. Especially if he knows that his parents could have important information.
The conversation with his mom about her clients drifts into the forefront of his mind, and the thought of her makes him realize something. His mom wasn’t with him during his visit to the upper planes last year. Sure, he told her about everything his dad said and he even got a picture, but she hasn’t actually interacted with her own husband since he died. All she’s heard are secondhand accounts of what he’s doing in the afterlife.
Riz decides that he needs to fix that. And really, what better way to fix that then to use the interplanar radio that your friend has?
It’s easy to convince Fabian to let Riz use the radio. There’s barely any convincing, really. Riz just had to ask and Fabian agreed immediately. Fabian almost seemed too eager to have him over, but when Riz asks he denies it vehemently. That’s far more of a typical Fabian reaction.
Riz quickly gets to work when Fabian’s leads him to the newly designated radio room. He sits on the (surprisingly comfortable) chair and starts a broadcast to the upper planes. He hopes that his dad’s super cool spy agency can somehow detect this. Like, who else in heaven would be looking through radio broadcasts? A spy agency, of course!
And Riz is proven right when the call is answered by a vaguely familiar female voice, one that he recognizes to likely be the secretary.
“Hi, this is Riz Gukgak. Don’t tell my dad I’m calling!” He blurts out. “I have a surprise for him.“
The secretary laughs softly, clearly entertained. “You got it.” She confirms.
“Okay, awesome.” Riz grins, excited that this has all worked so well and so efficiently. So far it has, at least. He explains his plan to the secretary.
The woman hums confirmations throughout his short explanation. He can hear a pen scribbling on paper from her end of the call. She’s probably doing cool spy secretary work, if he had to guess. When he’s finished he asks, “Can you wait a few minutes?”
She agrees, and Riz steps away from the radio. He makes sure that he doesn’t accidentally hang up the call before dialling his mom’s phone number into his personal crystal.
She answers the phone after one ring, as always. “Riz?”
“Hey mom.” He says, trying to be casual. And admittedly failing when he hears her sigh. “Can you come over to Seacaster Manor real quick? It’s kind of important.”
He hears rustling on the other end of the call. “Seacaster Manor? Is anyone hurt?” She asks, voice immediately shifting into the forcefully calm voice she uses whenever something bad happens. Her mom voice, he calls it.
Riz shakes his head, forgetting she can’t see him. “No! No one’s hurt, don’t worry about that. I just need you to come over here.” Realizing that alone sounds suspicious, he adds, “It’s something good, I promise!”
More rustling. “God, you had me worried, sweetie. You want me to come over right now?” She clarifies.
“I know you’re probably busy doing law stuff— which is important— but trust me, this is probably even better! You gotta believe me, mom, you’re gonna love it.”
The jingling of keys on a key ring. “Alright, alright. I’m on the way. Be there in five.” She says.
Riz pumps his fist in celebration. “Awesome. Bye, love you!” He calls. Sklonda responds with her goodbye, and then Riz hangs up.
Fabian enters the room. It’ll always surprise Riz how smooth Fabian’s doors are. They don’t squeak one bit, the hinges somehow always oiled. It definitely makes it harder to hear when he enters a room.
“What was that about, the ball?” Fabian asks.
Riz turns to him, still grinning. “My mom’s coming over. You don’t mind that, right?”
Fabian nods. “The more the merrier!” He exclaims, louder than necessary. The words echo off the walls of the almost-empty room they’re in.
Riz debates on whether or not to tell Fabian his plan. He eventually caves and does it, because, really, it’s just letting his best friend in on the fun. And Riz thinks it would be kind of rude to use someone’s house for something that they’re not in on.
A few minutes after Riz fills Fabian in, the doorbell rings throughout the manor. Riz rushes to the front door. Fabian races him there, opening the door before he can.
Sklonda steps through the doorway, a curious look on her face. She nods hello to Fabian, and lets Riz grab her hand and lead her to the room with the radio in it.
Riz hops into the chair that doesn’t at all match the colours of the radio contraption. He picks up the phone that’s just hanging from the wire, not hung where it’s supposed to be.
“Hi, I’m back. You can transfer the call to him now, but still don’t tell him it’s me!” Riz says, intentionally vague. Sklonda is curious on who the person he’s talking to is, and she’s almost forgotten that this is apparently supposed to be good for her specifically.
Riz gets up as quickly as he sat down, gesturing for Sklonda to sit. She does, and he hands her the phone.
There’s no time to question Riz. He urges her to answer the phone, and talk to whoever the call was supposedly transferred to.
It would be an understatement to say that Sklonda was simply confused. Why in the world has Riz made her come over to the Seacaster Manor just to make a surprise phone call on a machine that she’s never seen in her life? The situation is wildly absurd, but she has to admit that it’s quite intriguing.
“Hello?” She says into the phone, watching Riz’s reactions. The boy is bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly excited over whatever this phone call is supposed to be. Sklonda smiles, despite her confusion. If a phone call can make Riz this happy, maybe she should be here more often.
“Hello.” A surprisingly familiar voice on the other end responds. Sklonda racks her brain, trying to find out who this person is and how she knows them. Her hands come up empty.
Riz whispers something to her. “Ask who it is!” He urges.
Sklonda raises an eyebrow suspiciously, but ultimately decides to listen to her son. This whole thing is his idea, not hers. “Who is this?”
“I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I? You’re the one who called me.” The voice teases, still painfully familiar. At this point, it’s getting frustrating. She half wonders if her memory has been altered with, or something of the sort.
“Right.“ She responds. Unfortunately for this guy, she’s not introducing herself until he does. “You can get my name after I get yours.”
The person on the other side pauses, and Sklonda can hear voices in the background. He finally speaks up again. “You’re speaking to Agent Pok Gukgak.” He introduces.
She freezes. She looks at Riz, who looks like he’s going to start crying at any moment. He’s still grinning though, which means that this is… real. It’s real. Riz somehow set up a phone call with a secret agent force in heaven.
Riz somehow set up a phone call with Pok, just for her. Does Pok even know that it’s her on the other end? She curses herself for not placing his voice sooner. The way he speaks should have been so clear to recognize, even after seven years. She’s rewatched videos of him more times than she could count. Any video she can find, no matter the subject, she’s practically memorized.
“Hello?” He says cautiously. Her fingers tighten around the phone, knuckles going white. She didn’t recognize him, would he fault her for that?
Well, obviously not, if he didn’t recognize her either. Perhaps the quality of the call is obscuring how they sound, just enough to be unrecognizable at first listen.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Pok.” She repeats. Her throat burns as she tries to hold back her tears, but she doesn’t care. She’ll talk until her throat gives out, god dammit. She doesn’t give a shit if it hurts. “Hey, honey.” She says simply.
There’s a pause on the other end, for just a moment. “How are you doing this?” He blurts out. Of course he’d immediately ask how, what else would she have expected? He’s an agent for reason.
“I don’t know!” She responds just as quick as he had asked. A smile forms on her face, rivalling Riz’s. “Riz called me here and told me to answer the phone.”
“Holy fuck.” Pok mutters. A startled laugh finds its way past her burning throat.
Somehow, through her jumble of emotions, she remembers something that Pok had said years ago. Years ago, when Riz couldn’t even talk yet. Something that he’d just about kept true to for the years afterwards. “Hey, I thought you said you weren’t going to curse around Riz.” She tuts, taking a glance at the aforementioned boy. “You’d think you’d keep that rule, especially in heaven. Aren’t you supposed to be an angel?”
Pok laughs too, a beautiful sound that finally breaks the dam. Tears start free falling from her eyes, with not a chance in hell that they’ll be stopped by her. “You got me there, Lonnie.” He says. Despite the mediocre quality of the radio phone, she hears the obvious tears in his voice.
There’s a pause, filled only by the sounds of both of their quiet sniffling. Riz gives Sklonda an awkward thumbs up and leaves the room, clearly not wanting to interrupt the moment now that his plan is in motion.
“I missed talking to you, so much.” Pok breaks the silence. “I’m sure Riz has told you that I can see when you’re at my grave, so it’s not like I’ve had to go without hearing your voice. I missed being able to respond.”
She mentally thanks some god that Riz did tell her that. “Well, I’ve certainly had to go without hearing your voice.” She responds, sniffling again. “And I have to say, it sounds just as good as I remember.”
She can practically see him winking after that comment. She wishes she had actual visuals, but she thinks she knows her husband well enough to know what he looks and acts like.
“Now, if you could see me, I would have—“
She rolls her eyes fondly. “Yeah, winked, I know. I knew it before you even started your sentence, honey.”
Pok laughs again, the phone crackling slightly with the sudden spike in volume. “And you’re just as sharp as I remember.” He comments.
Talking to Pok almost makes her forget that she’s in her son’s best friend’s house. It’s not like Fabian’s house is small, so honestly she doesn’t particularly care too much. Fabian can give her a single room to talk to her dead husband in, right?
And honestly, it’s between her and her family if she spends the rest of the day on the phone. No one needs to know that she was putting her work aside, just for a few hours. Thank god she’s not in the force anymore, or her coworkers would be on her ass for taking time off. As if she wasn’t the most competent person there.
She considers asking Fabian where he got this contraption, because it would be much nicer if she could talk to her husband in the comfort of her own home. She files that thought away for later, and tunes back in to Pok’s theory on how radio calls like these even work.