#riverduffy

In the first chapter of the sequel to The Descent that I'm writing with @admirably-abhorrent River struggles to reintegrate back into life at Slough House and cope with the feelings and revelations awakened during the undercover mission.

Surprise motherfuckers we're BACK

Or if you need to begin at the beginning:

I wanna get in on ur toxic ship ask game, the answers to which have been delightfully riverduffy so far. Obvi answer how you feel but you are the parent of my brainworm

3, 6, 9

Thanks for the ask!

3: What would finally drive them to kill each other?

In canon it's pretty much just luck that prevents River being killed by Duffy's death squad, and it could easily have been River braining Duffy with the concrete block.

In dog!River AU I imagine River as being extremely loyal to Duffy, but I don't think it goes both ways - Duffy wouldn't want to kill River if he'd become a competent Dog, but I think he would if he got the order.

6: Why are they attracted to each other anyway?

For Duffy, it's partly that River is hot but mostly that he takes a beating really well. For River I'm not sure if it's his daddy issues or if he has a power fetish or that he's a total sub or all of the above. Or if those are just the same thing from different angles.

9: What (if anything) actually works between them?

But I also started imagining a world where Duffy comes out of his coma with tons of memory loss as a result of the TBI, and because he's technically a liability maybe he ends up in the Service facility and on one of his visits to David that's where River encounters him, and River is obviously suspicious but apart from the memory loss this Duffy is actually OK to be around. Completely spitballing but now I'm imagining River helping him with some sort of physical therapy (boxing?) and getting hit by accident and something... awakens 😈

Sorry for the plot bunny dump in your ask, and being here twice in one night! But my RiverDuffy brainworm is a direct descendent / clone of yours unfort

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Ooh, interesting! You should go for it!

Thanks for the ask!

4. How do they most trigger each other?

Oooh, this is interesting because there's something about River that just winds Duffy up and makes him slightly unhinged. And there's a lot of components to it: the nepo baby thing, the lack of discipline, River's entirely unjustified view that he's hot shit, and him knocking out Hobbs in s1. But I think the thing that drives Duffy most nuts is that River's not afraid of him. Duffy's used to terrifying people - and he is scary! He's murdered and kidnapped people in public places and faced no consequences, but somehow even after Duffy's beaten the crap out of him, River still doesn't give him the fear and respect he thinks he deserves.

Duffy probably triggers River in the way that most authority figures do - by not seeing that River's side of the story, which is that he is actually really smart and entirely justified in his actions.

8. What's the worst thing each of them has done to the other?

For Duffy it's probably the beating. Trying to kill River doesn't really count because it was on Ingrid's orders. For River it'd be breaching Park security, which could probably have got Duffy fired if he'd survived longer. Weirdly, none of this is all that bad compared to a lot of stuff that happens in the show.

Bonus thing

Thanks for the ask! Doing this for River/Duffy again because it's the one I've thought about the most...

13. Duffy definitely, canonically enjoys hurting River. River enjoys messing with Duffy but isn't really interested in hurting him.