2025 redraw of my first ever idia drawing + other misc idia stuff. k can feel myself fixating again on twst/disney villain stuff . Back in the building again
banjo 1.5 wks in,!!! messy attempt of this outer wilds arrangement ,,!!!! (ignore the one string thats super duper out of tune i have been fighting it)
River’s quick to drag his attention away from Felix’s door, but it’s too late. In the days leading up to this moment, River has never been far from Felix’s room. When he thinks no one is paying attention, he’s less discrete about it. Lincoln clocked it in a matter of hours, the first time River parked himself on this chair. He’s careful not to insert himself too far into places he doesn’t belong, but he thinks, maybe, it might help River, too. River, caught off guard, or maybe too tired to attack, studies his face instead. “He’s suffering, River,” Lincoln says gently.
Almost instantly, River goes rigid. "Do you think I don't know that?" he asks with all the bite that Lincoln has come to expect from him. He won’t be able to talk him down from here, but he thinks, maybe, if he slowly chips away at the armour he’s surrounded himself with, River will surprise him one day.
He crouches in front of him. “River,” Lincoln says, his voice soft. He’s acutely aware of the other residents and volunteers watching. He takes a breath, searching for the words, and in his hesitation, River shuts down entirely.
“I know that he’s suffering,” River says. He searches Lincoln’s face. “And I know the role I played in that.”
From behind him, Ethan flinches. There’s a lesson here, somewhere, about the dynamics of this group that Lincoln hasn’t even scratched the surface of. Before he has a chance to compartmentalize it, River says, “It is not your job to fix whatever is broken in me, even if someone has convinced you that it is. This has nothing to do with you.”
LIncoln stands, opens his mouth to find the retort he knows he needs to find, but River plows ahead. “If Felix wants to see me, he will ask. Until then, I don’t want to talk about this.”
His face, his body language, the whole of River London closes off. Lincoln takes one more stab at it, anyway.
“River,” he says. “He’s not going to ask.”
River stands, too, wraps his arms around his stomach, and waits for Lincoln to finish. For all the posturing, he still waits. It’s worth something. “He can’t ask,” he says. “I think it’s important that you understand that.”
In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, River’s face softens, and he passes one more glance at Felix’s door, before he retreats back to his room.
✥ ✥ ✥
It has taken River an almost embarrassing amount of time for him to get this far. He wasn’t prepared for how difficult this would be, for the sharp stabs of anxiety in which every step so far has resulted. His discomfort, though, is the cost of the debt that he carries; he was selfish to wait this long. He knows, he’s known, that this was the only possible outcome, and he’s delayed, day after day, because the idea of seeing Felix when he’s sick, when he’s really sick, when he can't speak or defend himself or... it makes his stomach churn. Whatever this feeling is, though, River knows that he has it coming. And that if the director is right, if the closure of seeing him might help Felix, then he owes it to him to see it through.
He lets his fingers rest against the door. The building is quiet now. It has been for hours. Prescott has left for the night, the other residents have all set up camp wherever they can find any traces of comfort. Three volunteers will be around somewhere, but they are careful not to patrol the halls. Or at least, not to be obvious about it.
River takes a breath as deep as he can and holds it as long as he can, and tries to remind himself, again, that things are different. Even if they don’t feel different, they are.
He raises his hand to knock and hesitates, letting the pads of his fingers once more rest on the door. He can’t ask, Prescott said.
In a shockingly decisive moment, he makes up his mind, and he pushes the door open as quietly as he can. He slips inside; it’s pitch black in here, lit by nothing but a sliver of moonlight. River is instantly aware of Felix’s presence, a mere meter away from him, but walks to the window first to open the curtain. He can hear each of Felix’s breaths, each gasp. It doesn’t feel real.
He delays it, as long as he can. It’s been months, maybe longer, since he’s been in this room. He turns from the window and orients toward the bed. He wars over a relentless urge to run away as his feet carry him way over to Felix’s bedside. He can’t be here, he thinks, again and again, but he has to be. He knows it as well as he knows anything. He has to be here.
He lowers himself into the chair that’s been set up. Prescott comes in here sometimes, spends hours in here sometimes. The first two nights, he slept in here, probably on this chair. River feels a rush of anger at the fact that someone else has spent this time with Felix, and he was too scared to do anything about it.
He wraps his arms around his stomach as hard as he can. He doesn’t touch Felix; as his eyes adjust, as Felix’s form comes into view, he watches him breathe. He takes in his body, frail from the constant abuse. He takes in the IV bag that hangs in the corner, his eyes follow the tube down to Felix’s body, to where it disappears under the blanket.
God, he would give anything–
He sucks in a breath, locking his jaw, and lifts the blanket enough to slip his hand under it. He finds Felix’s fingers, cold and clammy and too skinny and too still, and he leans forward, squeezing them softly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, two, three, four times. Felix takes a ragged breath then settles back into sleep.
River, for his part, can feel himself shaking. He doesn't know if it's fear or adrenaline or something else, but he knows he needs to be careful. He knows that Felix's hand in his, and that even though nothing is good, and nothing will ever be good again, this is the best he could possibly hope for. He draws in a long, steadying breath, and blinks back what he thinks might be the start of tears.
“I don’t know if you want me to be here,” he whispers. “But I’m here. And I’m so, so sorry.”
