Chapter Text
8… 9… 10… 11…
Styx hears Ronnie sigh, and turn to look at him across the room. Ha, gotcha. It only took 11 revolutions of slowly spinning in his desk chair staring up at the ceiling before Ronnie gave up pretending to be busy. “What is it that you so desperately want me to ask you this time, Styx?”
Styx waits until his chair slows to a stop then tilts his head further over the backrest to look at Ronnie upside down. “Dja sink th kizz rehie?”
In an astounding display of control over her facial muscles, Ronnie manages to look even more unenthused. “You want to try that again, hot shot?”
You know, one day her face is gonna get stuck like that. Styx takes the pen out of his mouth, “I said, do you think the kid’s ready? To you know,” Styx gestures to the computer and desk around him, “announce and shiii– stuff. They’ve been here over a year now. Its time to move their indoctrination to the next step, don’t you think?”
Ronnie, rather aggressively in Styx’s humble opinion, rubs her temples, another common go-to move from her repertoire of Dealing With Styx mannerisms. Ooo if she pinches her nose, and takes her glasses off I hit bingo! Ronnie sighs from deep within her chest, “Instruction. Further your instruction of them.”
Styx flaps his hand back in Ronnie’s direction while he spins his chair around to peer out into the hallway, “Yeah that’s what I said, same thing, whatever. Hey, kid!” Joey jumps a little, startled from where they had been tiptoeing past the door frame, and immediately shoves both hands behind their back. Okay next lesson after this will be subtlety. Styx beckons them closer.
Joey hesitantly walks over to where Styx is now standing in front of his chair. “C’mere kid a little closer, I need your shoulder.” As soon as Joey is within reach, Styx uses their shoulder as an anchor point as he lifts up a foot to plant on the seat of the swivel chair.
“Styx!” When Styx looks over at Ronnie, she has her glasses shoved on top of her head, and is doing an elusive two handed nose bridge pinch. Bingo! “So help me, if you stand on that chair I will make you do 3 weeks of workplace health and safety training again!”
“It’s not my fault the kid’s a giant! How else am I supposed to– ugh, whatever.” With an eye roll, and both feet back on the ground, Styx grabs the telescopic back scratcher from the pen holder on his desk. “Alright, just bend your knees then, kid.”
With the back scratcher extended, Styx taps the claw end against one of Joey’s shoulders, then the other, and then back to rest on top of the radioactive green mop Joey calls hair. “I now dub thee 97.3’s Junior Assistant Announcer.”
“Uh, wasn’t I already technically–”
“No, you were an intern. Now you are a junior assistant.” With a final pat of the claw on Joey’s head, Styx steps back and goes to get settled back at his desk. Once seated again, Styx turns his head to the side and throws back over his shoulder, “You’re gonna do the local sports update tomorrow by the way.”
Joey straightens back up to full height so fast Styx swears he heard their knees crack. Another quick glance back shows that their eyes are have shot straight past appetizer and are currently full dinner plate sized. “You want me to announce? Like, on the show. Where people are listening!?”
“Kid, it’s 5 minutes of cover for the local kiddie and junior league teams. This isn't Sportsnet, you just have to read the week's scores. You weren't at the games, so it’s not like you’re doing commentary on it. Huh, actually…”
Ronnie has seemingly reached her hourly limit of Styx Time and puts a hand on Joey's shoulder to lead them out of the room. “Come on hun, let’s leave before Styx decides field trips are a good idea. I'll show you where we get the scores from for the little league teams.”
Styx is in the middle of composing a text for their legal department about if he actually could send another employee on a field trip, when the phone line lights up.
Styx still hasn't managed to squash the hope that flares up each time the phone goes off, that maybe Buck is calling back in. Its been weeks since that last time he called, and unfortunately that “end of an era” feeling that came along with Buck’s change in song request has proven to be true. Styx knows that realistically he’ll never get an ending on that story, but he can’t quite manage to kill that last little flame of hope that lives in his chest like the worlds smallest pilot light.
Styx eagerly looks at the caller ID and– nope. Still not Buck. But also not a number that Styx recognizes from the handful of regulars that call in either. He gets his headphones back in place and hits answer.
“You’ve reached 97.3 eeezzz listening, what can I do you for?”
“Hi. I’d like to request a song to dedicate to someone.” The voice coming over the line is clear and strong. Friendly, but straightforward and to the point. Styx can’t help but think, God I miss Buck. Alas, the show must go on.
“Alright my man, sounds good. Is this for anything specific, or like a significant event?” Hey, at least if its a gender reveal this one isn't a one way ticket to a county wide wildfire.
“No, just–something I need to tell him. This has seemed to be a pretty effective way at getting a message across, so I figured it was my turn.”
Something starts itching in the back of Styx’s mind. “Fair enough. Alright let’s get this started here, can I grab your name?”
“Tommy.”
Now, Styx believes in a lot of things (ghosts are real, oat milk is disgusting, and the squirrels in his apartment complex have it out for him specifically) but coincidences aren’t one of them. Joey hasn’t come back yet, so Styx is forced to make his “are you thinking what I’m thinking” eye contact with the only being left in the studio; the stupid rubber duck. At least the smug little bastard seems to agree with him this time.
“Tommy. You’re calling in to request a song for someone, and your name is Tommy.” Styx can feel that little flame of hope in his chest start to throw off some sparks. “You wouldn’t happen to be listening to this station in your garage right now, would you?”
He gets a dry and drawled “Yes?” in response and can feel the raised eyebrow through the phone. “And that is certainly not creepy knowledge for you to have at all. Do I need to be concerned about hidden cameras right now?”
Styx cuts in before Tommy can start reevaluating his decision to call in. “The request is for Evan, isn’t it?” It had fucking better be going out to Buck or I’m gonna–
Luckily, Tommy responds before Styx can start planning hypothetical crimes against his person. “Yeah. Yeah it’s for Evan.”
Tommy tells them what the request is and– oh. Oh absolutely this is happening.
As soon as Styx realized who was on the other end of the line he has been laser focused on this call, so while they’re squaring away the final details and Styx starts to hear a hint of hesitance creep into Tommy’s voice, he is on it like an allergen alert dog zeroing in on a suspect bag of trail mix.
Tommy says, “Sorry, I feel like this is a little outside of the usual time period played here.”
Yeah, nope! Styx reassures him, “Buddy, you could have asked me to play fu–frickin Sabaton or, or Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, and I would have made something work. This is– this is fine, trust me.” There is not a chance in the world Styx going to let this Tommy guy even think about backing out of this, he’d rather shred his collectors edition complete series CSI box set than let this slip through his fingers.
Styx has to take a few laps around the room in preparation to get all the jitters out, a simple chair wiggle isn’t going to cut it this time. He hasn’t felt this nervous about doing a broadcast since his first year on the air. Joey had taken two steps into the room, then turned right back around and walked out while loudly announcing that they think they’d seen a sheet cake up on the 7th floor for someone’s birthday. Styx manages to do a last handful of jumping jacks while watching the clock tick down on the current song playing. He waits until 20 seconds left then slides into his seat, and affixes his headset once more. Okay, its time to Lock In.
“Alright I hope you all enjoyed your little Slice of Heaven with Dave Dobbyn, I know I sure did. This next one is a little newer than we typically play here, but I’m sure our loyal fans will understand.” Styx pauses a second to swallow, and then continues with as much sincerity and gravitas as possible, “Hey Evan, I hope you're listening out there right now because it's your turn for a dedication. "‘With love from Tommy’ this is Should Have Loved you Better by the Jonas Brothers.”
Well as far as apologies go this is a pretty damn good start. Styx has done as much as he can with his part, all he can do now is hope that Tommy is as accurate as Buck was for knowing when the other would be listening. Styx lets the song play out through his headphones while he gets up to go hunt Joey down for that piece of cake.
It scared me to death, but I never felt so alive
You said you pictured yourself growing old with me
Now I'm just a toxic heartbroken memory
Of some boy who could never give you what you needI should have loved you better
But I couldn't even love myself
Said that we're in this together
Then I didn't even try to help
When you needed me, I wasn't there to get you through it all
I should have loved you better