Work Text:
"I'm sorry, bud, but I really have to go," Pok smiled fondly, doing his best not to laugh or give in. For all the training preparing him for interrogations or manipulation, nothing had prepared him for the sheer power of a sleepy, pouty goblin kit.
Well, kit was pushing it. Riz was already nine (time really flew, didn't it? Hadn't he learned to walk just last week?) and well on his way to becoming a tween. His first change of teeth was almost over and the bigger ones were a little awkward in his mouth still, a few poking out because they hadn't grown in straight, giving him a bit of a lisp.
Riz looked up at him and squeezed his leg harder, a bit further and he might actually try using his claws to secure his hold.
"Do you haphe to?"
The Council had to be blind not to take any precautions against the force of those big, pleading eyes. Only through sheer force of will did Pok manage to make another attempt to gently shake Riz off.
"I'm have to. You know, Mum will be home soon, so you'll be alone for barely ten minutes or so."
Riz made a little noise.
"But I'll miff you."
Pok sighed softly and reached down. With some coaxing he got Riz to let go and lifted him up to hug him. Riz immediately wrapped his arms and legs around Pok's torso to keep clinging to him.
"I'll miss you too, sweetie," Pok kissed the top of his head. "So, so much." He swayed from side to side a little. "But I won't be gone long. And then, I promise, we can continue reading together. How's that sound, precious?"
Riz made another unhappy noise but his grip got softer.
"It won't be like with the ski guy?"
Pok needed a beat to remember what Riz might be referring to. He had to change his mission stories a lot to fit into the accountant story all their neighbours, the school board and, up until he was okd enough, Riz believed.
"No, it shouldn't take a month again," he answered as soon as he remembered. "Maybe a week, probably even less."
Riz nodded slowly. Pok held him close and purred, before finally setting him down.
"Mum will be here soon, have you packed everything you need for school yet?"
Pok finally made it out of the apartment with a few more 'I love you's and headed down the stairs. Halfway down he met Sklonda. She looked exhausted and they only exchanged brief goodbyes and a quick kiss.
"Sleep well," Pok told her.
"Take care," Sklonda replied.
-
Later, when Pok tried to remember his death, his last minutes were blurry. Factually he knew what had happened, Kalvaxus had eaten him alive, but actual memories? Those were one big haze of vaguely remembered pain and terror.
His new body bore no evidence of any of it. He thought maybe that was part of why he'd refused to accept he was dead for so long. Why he'd simply refused to process any of it, telling himself that he had to get home, that he could get home.
Clarity came slowly.
A grave on a hill, the transparent image of a his wife and son and mother and siblings, all dressed in black.
Pok could see them and hear them, but when he tried to reach out, his hand simple passed through.
For a while Pok let himself grieve his own death, then he got back to work. Work was something familiar, something to hold onto and keep himself going. He worked and whenever he could, he sat by his grave, hoping to see his family.
As time went on, the shadows under Sklonda's eyes got worse. They'd never had a lot of income, but it had always been enough.
A spy for the Council of Chosen made a lot more money than a small town detective.
Around the six month mark Pok found out that the Council paid for the headstone and then paid out none of the money families of field agents were entitled to in the event of a death on the job.
Pok watched Riz grow out of his clothes and eventually saw him wearing one of Pok's shirts. It was way too big for him, the sleeves had been rolled up several times and still covered his palms and Riz was practically drowning in the fabric.
He kept wearing the shirts anyway.
He started finding his own way to the cemetery, when Sklonda worked long hours, and eventually he started talking about whatever was going on. School tests, that he'd run from another babysitter, "I miss you".
Pok went on his first mission in the lower planes and came back to discover that Riz was in middle school now.
He hadn't realised that that much time had passed if he was honest.
But Riz was in middle school and had already found out that the kids there didn't want to be friends with him anymore than the ones last year had. He'd gotten away from yet another babysitter to come visit.
With the shirts he'd also started wearing Pok's old pants and ties. The knots were surprisingly even.
There was a grief Pok couldn't lay down and ignore to simply get back to work: His son growing up without a father. His wife a widow.
Pok received his plaque five years after his death.
After hundreds of years of life, the Emperor of the Red Waste had died because he'd made the mistake of killing Pok and underestimating Riz and his friends.
Sklonda and Riz visited his grave several times in the immediate aftermath.
Sklonda told Riz about Pok's work and the real story of how they'd first met. Things they'd always had to keep hidden from him.
Riz told her about his friends and how it had come to them murdering their vize principal at prom after breaking out of jail.
Pok went on another mission and found himself stuck for months on end. He took note of what he could about the Lord of the Bottomless Pit having seemingly been gone for a long time. Why an archdevil wore a sports cap and had a whistle was beyond him, but the excuses said archdevil made to the archdevil yelling at him were also vague and confusing, so who knew. He'd report it just in case it became relevant and focus on his mission.
It took a long time before he finally wound up in the Iron City of Dis.
He'd tried to prepare himself for getting tortured as himself, not some cover, but every mention of his family sat heavy in his stomach.
The fiend asked if he regretted not watching his son grow up and Pok nearly blew his own cover when the words got stuck in his throat. He deflected. He knew his answers were dangerously vague and impersonal, practically just stereotypes, but the fiend believed him and he finally got to play unconscious to buy himself some time to recover and get his head back in the game.
Behind closed eyes he saw Riz. How tiny he'd been when Pok had last gotten to hold him in his arms.
The devils left and he allowed himself a breath, subtly working his bindings looser.
Something shifted and suddenly there was someone breathing heavily in the room with him. Pok smelled blood that wasn't his own - that smelled of prime material - and gunpowder and something else.
Gunpowder like he knew Seacaster used, who the devils had mentioned, but Seacaster's crew was made up of dead pirates. No one who should smell like this.
Something metal snapped and a hand grabbed at Pok when the door burst open and he heard the devils hiss, followed by the sound of struggle.
Pok dared to open his eyes just a little and felt like someone had doused him in ice water.
Blood, gunpowder and family.
His old gun was comfortable in his grip and Pok shot both devils dead before they could notice him get up.
Riz stumbled and stared at him, one eye wide, the other swelling shut. He looked terrible.
He was barely a head shorter than Pok.
Gods.
Pok hastily reached for his comm, before someone else could come.
"This is Gukgak. I need an extraction!"
Riz's eyes followed the movement carefully. He was still tense and suddenly Pok wondered where he'd come from. If he'd heard -
You're an undercover angel?" Riz's good eye went wide as soon as Pok felt his halo form.
"You got it, kid."
The relief on Riz's face tied Pok's stomach into knots. How much had he heard? How much had he believed?
He quickly grabbed Riz when he felt the gateway open and heavenly light flooded the room.
Gods. His son was here, in his arms. For the first time in... seven years now? He wasn't sure, Hell was weird when it came to time. Gosh, Riz had to be fifteen or sixteen now. He'd grown so tall, but holding him close it was apparent that he had that awkward teen lankiness of new height but no width.
Pok pulled him even closer, breathing in, doing his best to block out the gunpowder and blood. Underneath he could smell traces of Sklonda and people he didn't know. Underneath he smelled the little kid that had crawled into bed between them on early mornings because he hadn't been able to sleep.
Riz squeezed him back and Pok let himself bask in the contact before he slowly pulled back. Riz panicked slightly before seemingly realising that there was no danger.
He looked so much like Sklonda, it was incredible. He gotten her curls even.
"I got a bunch of tattoos," Riz blurted.
Pok could only smile. "Your mum's gonna be so mad." On a level he knew he should be too, seeing his teen son with both arms covered in fresh tattoos, that looked like they'd gotten irritated badly in whatever fight he'd been through. But the joy over holding him took up far too much room in Pok's body for anger to fit as well.
He found himself keeping a hand on Riz the entire time as he showed his through heaven, watching his face as he reacted to everything, the startled joy when the other agents came and greeted him, congratulating him, the excitement.
The transport had healed his wounds and cleaned away the blood. Cleared up the view at the awkward goblin teen that had somehow gone interplanar before even graduating high school and found Pok, that knew more about Kalina than they'd managed to find after just a few weeks of looking into her.
His tie was still horribly burnt, his shirt too big and rumpled.
He watched Riz slip into the waistcoat and carefully button it up, amazed when it fit perfectly - of course it did, it'd hardly be heaven if you couldn't find clothes that fit properly, and took the Gregory tie before Riz could.
When he'd been seventeen his father had taught him how to tie a tie. One of the few memories of actual time spent together during his teen years Pok had.
He'd always promised himself to be more present in Riz's life than his father had been in his, but that memory had been something he'd held onto. Something he'd always thought he'd pass on one day, for Riz's first school dance or similar event, that he'd stand in front of the bathroom mirror with him and lead him through the knot until Riz could do it himself.
He didn't know who had ended up teaching Riz. If there'd been any sort of occasion.
He looped the tie around Riz's neck. Riz made an aborted noise that might've been a protest or "I can do it myself".
Pok crossed the wide end over the narrow end, then behind and pulled it through the neck loop. He was vaguely aware of Riz staring at him as he crossed the wide end in front of the knot, up through the neck loop and back down through the front loop.
He tightened it carefully and let himself meet Riz's eyes again.
"By tugging on it you can activate a camera that can detect magic or good and evil, like this," he explained, briefly demonstrating. "It should record up to twenty minutes of footage, then you can save it somewhere else and watch it and delete the storage like so."
His hand lingered at Riz's tie and he moved them to his shoulder after a beat.
Riz couldn't stay here. His friends and Sklonda were waiting for him, he had a mission - gods, he was their son in so many ways.
But when he left, who knew when he'd be back. When Pok would next get to have a conversation with him, hold him.
"Tell me all the least important things," he asked, steering Riz away from the portal. Stalling the inevitable, trying to get just a little more of the live he hadn't gotten to see in person.
Riz indulged him. He rambled about his friends and sleepovers and various small cases he'd taken and school classes, no particular order to any of it.
Pok didn't want to let him go and hoped not to see jim again for a long time, both desires clashing in his chest and tightening his throat.
One day, hopefully many years from now, they'd be a family of three again, but until then he told Riz to give Sklonda all his love and gave him one last kiss on the forehead, trying to savour the moment.
Riz stepped into the light and when it disappeared he was gone.
Back on the material plane.
Pok sighed and rubbed his face. For a few minutes he stood in the soft breeze and let himself grieve.
"Back to work," he whispered and finally turned to head back to his desk. He had a report to write up and Riz's part-time employment papers to finish up. His coffee mug was half full and perfect temperature as he sat in his desk chair and picked up his pen.