#John wick chapter 4 spoilers

[boredth]

Peace

[whumpypepsigal]

John Wick Chapter 4 (2023): “Will you take me home?”

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

Ghosts

Summary: A phone call from a stranger with news about a man from a life you had left behind a long time ago, brings back many memories, making you travel from France to New York City for one last time. Only for a promise made twenty years ago to wait for you once you are back home.

Pairing: John Wick x fem. reader

Rating: G

Wordcount: 1.5k

Warnings: !! spoilers for John Wick Chapter 4 !! do not read this if you don't want to be spoiled for the movie (this is an attempt on a fix it fic lmao), guns, death, angst, fluff

A/N: yeah I know it's been 84 years but here I am with my silly little John Wick fic, trying to make sense of the movie I watched two days ago. Summary is a lil vague cause spoilers

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You jumped awake, uncertain what it was that woke you up. 

Groaning your eyes found the time on the alarm clock on your bedside table, showing you that it was just after 3 am. Was it a nightmare? You had those, even though not as frequently as before. Out of instinct you reached under your bed, finding the familiar shape of your gun still in place. 

You hadn’t actually used a gun in almost twenty years, yet knowing it was there gave you a sense of safety, your mind wandering to the last time you had used it. 

The night you died. 

The night you left your old life. 

The night he killed you. 

Your life had been planned out for you before you even took your first breath. You were the future head of the Ruska Roma, your fathers pride and joy. 

You never had a choice in that matter. 

You learned hundreds of ways to kill a person, had material art lessons daily followed by lessons learning every single detail about the high table and your family's enemies, making you a killing machine before you even turned thirteen years old. 

It was on your thirteenth birthday that you met John Wick for the first time. 

He was older than you, at least ten years, but there was something in his eyes that seemed familiar to you. It was the same look you saw every day when you looked into the mirror. Sadness, Anger, Emptiness. 

He spent a year working exclusively for your father, doing his dirty work, before he disappeared like a ghost into the night. 

Almost twelve years would pass before you and John would meet again.

He became a friend, if you had friends in the world you had been born into. Maybe even your only friend. And so much more. He trained you, his reputation proceeding him, his name only whispered in the underground as if he would appear out of thin air if you dared to speak out his name. 

Spending time with John became an escape to the ever lingering pressure all around you, your personal challenge becoming to make him crack the facade he put on, for just a tiny glimpse at the man behind the myth.

It was when your father announced your engagement to another future member of the high table, catching you totally off guard, that gave you finally the strength to plan your way out. 

You knew survival was almost impossible. 

So you had to die. 

And who better to help you make your death believable than the boogeyman himself?

Shaking your head out of the memory of John, blinking away the many pictures of his soft smile as you woke up in his arms day after day before you disappeared you sighed. 

It had been almost twenty years since you last saw him, since he promised once he got out for good he would find you, but sometimes you still found yourself thinking about him. He had been your best friend and so much more. The first man you kissed, the first man you slept with. 

Your phone buzzed and you reached for it, your eyes frowning at the foreign number. 

“Hello?” you said. 

A sigh was heard on the other end of the line. 

“This is… My name is Winston and I am calling for Jonathan Wick….”

Getting to New York undetected must have been the single most anxious task of your life. You hadn’t been back here since you kissed your former life goodbye. 

But it was John. 

And Winston, who you learned was the Manager of the New York Continental Hotel, assured you that your safety would be assured if you chose to travel to John’s funeral. 

“John and I may have had our issues, but he made me promise to keep an eye on you if anything would ever happen to him,” he had told you. 

It was from him that you learned that even though you hadn’t talked or seen John since that night, John had very much kept up with you and your life. To make sure you were always safe. 

You learned that he got out too before because he fell in love, got married to the woman he loved before she died from a long illness, the aftermath of that sucking him back into the underworld where he fought for his freedom before he eventually found it and died on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris. 

Only two hours away from the small town you had called home for the last couple of years. 

You weren’t prepared how much the news of his death would hurt. 

While learning that he got out for another woman hurt when you first learned about it, in the end you were happy he got to experience love and life apart from the underworld.

Sure, he could have died without you knowing it since you lost contact. But knowing that he still cared about you even after all these years, made you so fucking sad and happy at the same time. 

Winston and someone who named himself the Bowery King (you did not ask any questions) had left you alone at the graveyard, a trusted security detail from Winston staying behind as you stood under the umbrella facing John Wick’s grave. 

Loving husband it read beneath his name.

It brought a small smile to your lips. 

When you were younger you always pictured him when you dreamed of getting married. But that was all it was. 

A dream. 

John Wick was the first man you loved, maybe the only man you really loved. 

“I hope you found your peace, Jonathan,” you whispered, your fingers brushing over his gravestone, before you set down a single rose on his stone and on Helen’s. His wife’s. 

You blinked away the tears.

“Thank you for keeping me safe,” you said with a sad smile on your lips before you slowly turned around and walked back to your car. 

It was early morning when the car drove through the tiny town of La Mare just on the coast of France. 

Was it totally insane taking a risky twenty four hour trip to New York City for a funeral of a man you hadn’t talked to in twenty years?

Yes. 

But you would do it again. 

You thanked the driver with a tired smile, watching him drive away as you searched for your keys in your purse. 

You had stayed to have a drink with Winston and meet with a lawyer from whom you learned that John had put you in his last will, making you the sole heir to everything he owned in case his wife died before him. 

After you had been driven back to the private airstrip where you took the private jet you had arrived with back to europe.

You just wanted to lay down and cry, the rollercoaster of feelings you had gone through since your phone call with Winston just two days ago still not really setting in. 

You unlocked the door, letting your bag fall down in the hallway as you shut the door behind you, leaning with your back against the door, taking a deep breath. 

This was so fucking silly. 

Why were you so heartbroken about a man you had said goodbye to before?

You got out of your shoes, walking down the long hallway towards the kitchen half asleep. You blamed it on that you did not hear the noise until you were walking through the door, stopping in your tracks at the man currently fighting with your coffee maker. 

Instinct set in and you silently walked to the table closest to you, intent on grabbing your gun when you found it gone. 

“If you’re looking for your gun, it’s right here,” your head turned towards the man who had now turned around, his head nodding towards your big kitchen Island where your gun was laying. 

Your eyes flew from him to the gun, before you looked at him again, your lips parting in a gasp. 

“John?” you whispered in disbelief. 

Slowly he walked towards you, limped really, before he came to a stop in front of you. 

He was older, his dark hair longer than the last time you had seen him. He was wearing sweatpants and a white shirt and you could see the bandages beneath it from where he must be hurt.

“I told you I would find you once I got out for good,” he said carefully, but you just kept looking at him like he was a ghost. A ghost from your past.

“Hope you don’t mind, I let myself in.”

“I... I was at your funeral,” you whispered. 

“I was at yours too,” he said. 

“You got married,” you said. He nodded. 

“But now you’re here.”

“But now I’m here.”

You took a step towards him, carefully reaching out, your hand coming to rest on his chest, just above his heart. 

“It’s been a long time,” you whispered. 

“Yeah.”

“A lot has happened since we last saw each other,” you said. He nodded.

“You wanna have breakfast and tell me all about it?” you asked. 

“Yeah. I’d love that.”

[r1-jw-lover]

Caine as John Wick's Mirror: A Somewhat Coherent Analysis

What is even a 'mirror' exactly, narratively-speaking?

A mirror character is someone who reflects the hero, usually by highlighting similarities, and is therefore used to help enhance the themes being explored in the story. They can share personality traits, values, skillsets, even goals and narrative arcs, but how the pair of characters differ in their approach to these commonalities is what makes this literary device so interesting.

Caine as a character in the John Wick universe is so fascinating to me (not many people are able to go toe-to-toe against the Baba Yaga himself) and while a lot of my fascination and enjoyment can be attributed to Donnie Yen's performance and his chemistry with Keanu Reeves, what I want to talk about is the writing of his character, and how well Caine served as a mirror to John Wick, the protagonist.

I think to analyse Caine as a character, we need to first look back at another character who most closely served a similar function as Caine towards John Wick: Cassian.

Cassian and Caine are the only two people in the John Wick movies who fought John Wick squarely in a one-to-one match as equals, and got a gracious send off by John in return. Neither of them wanted to or asked to be made an enemy of John Wick (in fact, it was John's actions that caused both men to pit against the Baba Yaga), but each of them took up their role within the story with much dignity and fairness, and in the end were rewarded with John sparing their lives.

Cassian provides lovely contrast to John in Chapter 2. He is the first to show us a character on the same playing field as John Wick who could sit next to the legendary Baba Yaga and share a drink and enjoy a conversation before Caine or anyone else did.

Cassian and John respected each other, knew each other's preferred drink and promised to make the other's death quick, but it seems that's all there is to their relationship, and the moment they stepped out of the Rome Continental all bets are off.

Their motivations are widely different at this point in the story, and Cassian as a character feels more like an obstacle in John's way that John had to face eventually.

Speaking within the confines of the individual movies that they first appeared in, I will argue Cassian from Chapter 2 aligns more closely with the Tracker/Mr. Nobody from Chapter 4 when it comes to his place in the overall narrative, and it is Santino who's on the same level as Caine, because Santino had history with John, asked John about his wife, knew John personally and was the reason John broke Continental rules and would eventually go up against the High Table.

To add onto this, Cassian more importantly serves as a greater parallel to Ares being bodyguards of the D'Antonio siblings with the way John left his opponent's knife in Cassian's chest and kept him alive because John respected Cassian vs John pulling Ares' knife out of her chest and letting her die because John couldn't respect Ares.

At the end of the day, John and Cassian are both men who were ultimately bound by their loyalties to Santino and Gianna respectively, whether that be out of a Blood Marker or out of a sense of duty.

On the other hand, the relationship between John and Caine is the literal heart of Chapter 4.

Yes, Caine has parallels with other characters too. He and Koji were fathers trying to protect their daughter if it meant throwing away their shared brotherhood, he and Mr. Nobody were pawns under the Marquis' thumb tasked with hunting John Wick, but these parallels take a backstage to the parallels between John and Caine.

They are retired hitmen who were forced back into their old life and pitted against each other in a duel to the death through circumstances out of their control. Neither of them had any love for the High Table, and neither of them wanted to hurt or kill the other either. They have the physical evidence to show of their past/present servitude to the High Table (John's ring finger and Caine's eyes), and in contrary to the Marquis' own evaluation of their character, both men had someone to live for, die for, and kill for.

Where they differ is that, one is driven by a sense of loss to remember his dead wife, and the other is driven by a sense of protection to keep his daughter alive. (It's interesting to note that Helen's death had nothing to do with the High Table at all whereas Mia was only alive thanks to the High Table's grace.)

This dilemma of choosing between their loved one and their past friendship is key to Chapter 4's theme of what it truly costs to obtain freedom. It reminds us that John isn't a perfect martyr for rebelling against the High Table with how much trouble and pain he caused to those around him, including Caine. But it also doesn't absolve Caine from the bloodshed he's responsible for despite his hands being tied by the Marquis, or the fact that killing his friend is wrong.

Caine: We are damned, you and I. John: On that, we agree.

I think that Chapter 4 introducing Caine early on in the movie, definitely much earlier than Cassian in Chapter 2, tells us how important Caine's role is to John's goal of achieving freedom and peace. (The most notable example is Caine helping John up the stairs of Sacre-Coeur after he got kicked down these very same steps by Chidi.) In the same vein, Caine wouldn't have gotten his happy ending if John hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice of saving his last bullet to shoot the Marquis.

Not only that, Chapter 4 also shows us several instances of genuine camaraderie and companionship between John and Caine underneath their antagonism, not just how well they worked together and understood each other when they had a common enemy in sight (first in the Berlin nightclub with Killa, and eventually during the sunrise duel with Marquis de Gramont) but also how much they cared for each other deep down.

John and Cassian are colleagues, but John and Caine are close friends. And I think that's why Caine makes for such a good mirror to John Wick, and is the one most deserving to send off John Wick for good in the final chapter of the franchise, that is until John Wick 5 comes along. :(

Tagging @evren-sadwrn, @chaoticgardenbread and @jotunvali02 <3 <3

[wowifinallywatched]

"Winston, Will you take me home?"

John wasn't asking "Will you take me home, so I may rest?"

He was asking "Will you take me home and lay me to rest?"

Fuck.

[nitewrighter]

Me, being hopeful: I dunno maybe it was ambiguous. Like maybe putting up the headstone is how Winston and the Bowery King were making sure that the High Table would never come and bother him again, regardless of who's sitting at it. Like maybe he's living out somewhere sunny with his dog, actually moving past his grief like his wife wished for him in the very first movie.

Also me: God, he got hit by like 15 different cars and he jumped out of that two story window and then he fell off of that other 2 story balcony and hit his back on the way down and he nearly got hanged and THEN ALL THOSE FUCKING STAIRS--

[witchw0lf]

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

What Caine was thinking after he shot John:

🎵 Death doesn’t discriminate

Between the sinners and the saints

It takes and it takes and it takes

History obliterates

In every picture it paints

It paints me and all my mistakes

When Jonathan aimed

At my sides

He may have been the first one to die

But I’m the one who paid for it

I survived, but I paid for it

Now I’m the villain in your history

I was too young and blind to see...

I should’ve known

I should’ve known

The world was wide enough for both Jardani and me

The world was wide enough for both Jardani and me 🎵

[halsteadsbradshaw]

I just got home from watching John Wick chapter 4 and I just have no words

[pinkrose787]

[boredth]

Loving husband

[wcwit]

John Wick Chapter 4

[tishrivers]

andddddd i saw john wick 4 today, keanu reeves and everyone else really but they put their whole pussy in that movie like they really didn’t have to do us gworls like that! don’t even get me STARTED on the LIGHTING UGH—

[r1-jw-lover]

John Wick casual fans:

Me: *praying* Please allow Charon to haunt the narrative of John Wick Chapter 5.

[wowifinallywatched]

Wow I finally watched John Wick 4

A man who only wanted to Love.

A man who fought for what was right, for the freedom of those who deserved it.

And when he finally got his freedom, he could finally step down and lay himself to rest.

After his love was already taken away from him, he wasn't about to let just anyone take his life away from him.

But he couldn't lay down until he let those know what they'd taken away from him, until they felt his pain.

Now he had paid his dues, ensured only those deserving to live, did.

He is now free to simply be a Loving husband.

As he wants to be forever known as.

Because that's all that mattered to him in this world of pain and suffering.

To Love, to care and to protect those around that matter most to him.

And that's what he did.

Until his very last breath.

There's conflicted feelings on this ending, John deserved so much more than to go through all of that and die at the end of it.

But I think what matters is what John wanted.

And I think this is the ending he would have chose for himself, so he did.

That's pretty beautiful.

Little words but with alot of meaning.

[nitewrighter]

My brother insisted I post this (also shoutout to @strawberrykaktus for the art which he has saved on his phone because HE was the true originator of the Hanzo “could a depressed person do this” joke).

But anyway here is his explanation:

Ashe = The Tracker/Nobody: “they both use repeaters and the dog is Bob.”

Akira = Hanzo: “Bows and also her dad used more swords.”

Killa Harkan = Roadhog: “he’s big and somehow he keeps staying alive because he keeps using that inhaler”

Chidi = Ramattra: “he uses his jacket for defense mode and then just beats the shit out of you with his fists.”

Marquis = Maximilien: “Fuck this guy. Also they both wear really big pins.”