Slow Horses 4.06 Hello Goodbye

One day river has a dream. He's old. To his mind's eye, he looks like his grandfather. He's in a care facility exactly like the one he dropped David off at - except River isn't alone. There's another old man there, with hair wisped over a bald spot and gold half-rimmed glasses perched on a nose sculpted with unusual perfection, like someone's paid good money to erase any signs that it was ever broken. The man carries a cherry wood cane, although he rarely needs it, and he has a permanently fussy look stamped upon him, with his pristine coat and his bespoke house slippers.

In the evenings, the two of them retire to one of their rooms. Together, they sit at a small table barely fit to hold a tray, and they play cards. The card game they play, the only card game they ever play, is the only game they know that gives neither one a clear advantage. It's also the only card game they both hate. They both know this, although neither one wants to be the one that admits it first. That's the real game they're playing, and the first to crack loses.

If River squints, he can spot on the other man's temple, poorly hidden behind the thinning hair, the crackling, spidery web of an old scar.

The voice that speaks hasn't aged a day.

"Tell me, River. Did you ever become the best?"

River startles awake with tears on his face. He doesn't know why.

He's older than that voice now by a few years, and it's always going to stay that way.

(And he's still at Slough House.)

I have an unhealthy obsession with the way these two exchange looks in these scenes

Wanted to draw them again X3 Just really love this story and these characters :D

Slow Horses + River Cartwright always having the worse day

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SAS: Rogue Heroes Season 1 Episode 3 The Lament for Icarus (1898) by H. J. Draper

“Regrets”

RIVER CARTWRIGHT ● Slow Horses S02E05

You can’t go to a 70s-themed disco bash at the Shack without a vintage 70s shirt and a gold chain.