#(because anything remotely associated with kmcg intrigues me)

[formsofcontinuity]

And now for something completely different... 😂

A friend and I have been watching the John Wick movies to prepare for The Continental because apparently I'm willing to sit through 8+ hours of true inanity to prepare for a few scenes (hopefully more!) of Katie McGrath . We were talking about how John could have just retired at the Continental and avoided all the carnage after the second movie, and, for reasons beyond my fathoming, I had to write a short fic about it. So, in case someone else feels like John deserves to have more depth in these films, here's a little retirement fix-it that's canon divergent for the end of John Wick 2 (contains spoilers for the first two films).

Coda

The delivery was on a Thursday. Days didn’t mean much, nor time, nor seasons, but Thursday mattered because of the delivery. There it was, whole and gleaming, all metallic shine and fresh paint, black more luminous than he remembered. The chassis was just the same, but with a bit of the uncanny about it, like your hometown after twenty years or a river you’d played in as a child that seemed smaller now because you were grown. Still, it was known to him like Helen’s heartbeat, a soft staccato pulse from his dreams, a chrome ghost. The engine reverberated its purr into his blood, the hood still hot from the midday sun as he pulled the Mustang into the dark garage of the Continental where it would cool, indefinitely. 

Three months had passed. In another life, he’d pulled the trigger, shattered the only haven. In this life, he’d hesitated long enough for Winston to stop his hand. Santino’s smirk almost brought John’s finger back to complete its circuitous path of redemption, but at the merest twitch of his wrist, fear contorted the traitorous face and John had known with sudden clarity the way this would go. The only way. 

“Do you have a job for me?” He’d cocked his head at Winston, but held Santino’s gaze, daring the other man to keep eating, daring him to keep living. The moment held. Santino stood. He left his plate behind as he slunk from the room.

He didn’t matter anymore. Not now. 

“A job?” Winston muttered, but John could see his old friend knew what he was asking. “Would you really want that?”

“I’ve tried the other way. It didn’t work. A job?”

“For you? Of course.” 

Three months had passed. John stalked through the Continental’s corridors like a golem. Inert but always moving, fixing this and that, taking care of the many small and large tasks Winston put before him. Never complaining. Never stopping. Never thinking.

The gawking visitations of the jackals seeking their bounty waned after the first two weeks. They were scavengers scenting him–eagerly, at first, then with pity, then boredom. Then, not at all. Even for them, his annihilation came at too high a price. 

Within these walls, he was worthless. 

As for Santino, their paths rarely crossed. It occurred to John that the man was avoiding him. It also occurred to John that he no longer cared. 

It was a Thursday when the car was delivered back into his care, like new, only to be shelved away, a relic. It was that same Thursday when Santino’s contract against him ended. It vanished, just like that, just like the man himself.  Seven million dollars for John’s head.  Now, nothing. Just time, always time.

“He checked out,” Charon offered, stoic except for the brightness of his eyes. “Perhaps he no longer appreciated our hospitality.” 

“You can go anywhere.” Winston said softly that same night, as if answering a question John had not asked. They were finishing dinner in his office, perched over the Continental’s accounting books, plates balanced on the corners of a pristinely organized desk. “You’re free now.” Did Winston sound reluctant? Relieved? John could not tell. 

Under his chair, the dog curled tighter against John’s legs, a hot head draped over one foot. 

He still hadn’t named the animal, after all these months. You don’t name cows headed for slaughter. After you’ve identified a mark, you no longer think of them by name. Just a body. A predetermined corpse. Flesh and bone made for rending, blood made for letting, another fragile soul easily loosed from its frame. 

Naming things made them matter. Then you knew them, and they couldn’t be unknown. Then, a disease could strip the hard-won paradise from your very hands, leaving you with only ash. Then, the jarring rattle of a gun’s barrel could fall against your temple, wrenching you back into a broken promise of a life. Then, the uncaring blast of a missile could rip stone and brick from its moorings. Helen’s name on his lips in her final hours. Daisy’s whimpering breaths of confused devastation. The home that held his marriage bed, his memories, the last vestiges of the life he’d given everything for, shattered like glass. 

“Can I stay?” John found himself asking.

Winston eyed him curiously, nodded, and stood to remove their emptied plates. 

“As long as you like.” 

That night, the dog, like a shadow, padded after John to his quiet top-floor room. He laid his head on John’s knee, leaning into his fingers when he scratched at soft ears.  

“Good boy,” he muttered. The dog’s ears twitched briefly before settling. His head sank more heavily into the support of John’s body; his eyes fluttered closed. 

The dog knows who he is, named or not, John thought, blinking into the punctuated half-light of an urban midnight. And who am I to him? Just a food bowl, a presence, a warm knee. 

Not John, to him. 

“Good boy,” he murmured again, his own eyes suddenly heavy, exhausted with the weight of a thousand encounters, the named and the unnamed. 

Tomorrow, he’d wake up. And his dog would wake up. The sun would just be glimmering on the horizon and the city would be quiet.

Tomorrow would be Friday. It would still be September, and the air would be cool, the sky bright. He would stay, and he would work. He would live.