#and then opt to nearly kill them and leave them for dead in area zero

[beyond-the-isle]

Y'all would not believe the SPEED in which I started getting brainworms about Briar's potential role in the dlc, I'm manifesting a lot of things here

potential prelude of sorts to what would've led up to this post

[pkg4mumtown]

Literally anything that has to do with that GODDAM BELT SCENE in John Wick 3. I’m a sucker for rescue scenarios and some good old Wick domination

Title: Last Resort

A/N: The belt scene killed me! I saw the movie three times and made the same fucking noise each time. I tried to incorporate all three things into one, so we’ll see if I succeeded.

Rating: M (violence, cursing, mild sex), female reader

Summary: The reader is out to fill a contract, but someone gets in her way.

I took a deep breath as I approached the hideout of some Russian asshole with a sizable contract out on him. Due to the price, I set out to complete the contract as quickly as possible; staying up late last night to memorize the layout of the hideout. I checked the chamber of my pistol, making sure I was set to go before listening against the door for any signs that someone got here first. All was silent, so I quickly picked the lock and peered in.

I favored a longer distance from my opponents, so a silenced pistol was a must as I stalked through the hallways. The area was heavily guarded as he knew he had a contract out on him, but his guards didn’t expect an attack so soon, so I was able to take them off guard. I made my way through cleanly, eventually coming to a door that I knew was one room away from the target’s office.

I had confidence oozing out of my pores at the ease in which this mission had been so far. I pushed the door open slightly with my shoulder and checked the areas that opened to me asI did. The door was barely half way open when a hand clamped down on the muzzle of my gun. In my over confidence, I made a rookie mistake and had stuck my pistol too far out in front of me which left me open to attack.

I cursed as I tried to wrench my weapon back, opting to push hard against the door to throw the assailant off balance. His grip on the gun remained, however, and the weapon was ripped from my hands as he stumbled back. I rushed in, tackling him before he could recover his bearings. I took note of the sheer amount of men in the room, hesitating slightly as I realized they heavily guarded the last room as a fail-safe. No wonder the rest of the place had been so easy. I jumped on the first assailant, grabbing my knife from my belt and stabbing him in the chest and head quickly. A group of men rushed me, and I held them off as long as I could, until one of them had managed to get behind me. I felt his arm wrap around my neck, squeezing tightly while a couple others grabbed my arms and legs. I grimaced as I felt plastic zip ties clamp around my legs and dig into my skin. The arm around my neck released me as my arms were twisted roughly behind my back and zip tied. I threw my head back, cracking the man behind me in the nose but earning me a punch to the stomach. I lost my balance, falling on my wrists and ass as I tried to catch my breath.

I looked up, seeing one with a bloody nose, “Sorry, did that hurt?” I snarked at him.

He kicked me in the ribs and sneered back in a heavily accented voice, “You’re lucky boss wants you alive. Something tells me he’s going to have a great time with you, bitch.”

I let out a pained groan through clenched teeth as I felt a hand wrap itself into my hair and drag me across the floor. I was lifted by my armpits into a metal chair. The zip ties on my feet were cut, but my legs were grabbed too quickly to retaliate and soon each leg was tied to a chair. I tried to tilt the chair but found that it was bolted into the floor rather securely. The zip ties on my wrists were cut and my arms were wrapped around the back of the chair and re-bound. One of the men spoke into a radio, briefly exchanging words with the other voice, who I assumed to be my target.

“He’ll be with us in a minute,” the man chuckled.

One minute turned into five as I shifted impatiently in my chair. A panicked voice came over the radio but was so filled with static that it was unintelligible to my ears. My head shot up and saw the wide eyes of the rest of the men in the room. The majority of them ran out of the room with guns drawn, leaving six men in the room with me, in front of me, but facing away as they trained their guns on the door. I kept my eyes on them as I twisted my wrist inward to attempt to grab a knife that I kept inside of my jacket sleeve, which they neglected to check. I was able to grab it with my fingertips, before letting it slide into my palm, so I could cut my restraints. It was small but would serve its purpose. I could hear the faint sound of gunshots and screams as I worked, watching the men in front of me grow more and more nervous as the sounds grew closer. I briefly wondered who else was determined to fill the contract and who had the reputation to rattle these men. One of the men turned and faced me, backhanding me in anger. I clenched my fists tightly to keep from fighting back, so he didn’t know I had cut my restraints.

“You think your little guard dog can save you?” he spat.

“I didn’t bring anyone with me, asshole,” I snarled back, spitting in his direction. He hit me again, the skin of my lip broke and bled as a result. “Fuck you.”

He grabbed a piece of cloth from his pocket, grasping either side of my face and digging his fingers into the hollows of my cheeks until I opened my mouth. As he was finishing tying the cloth around my mouth, the door burst open and gunshots rang out. Four of the men dropped dead nearly instantly, letting me see a figure using a dead assailant as a human shield. The assassin fired another shot but missed. He tried to fire again but noticed his gun was now empty. The empty pistol was flung at the face of one of the last two men. He dropped the human shield, revealing the assassin as none other than John Wick. I snorted to myself, typical John to go throwing guns at people. He charged the disoriented man and tackled him to the ground. I took my chance as both men were focused on John and his knife.

I quickly bent over, cutting the two zip ties around my ankles, removing the makeshift gag, and stalked away to find my gun. I quickly located it and sped over to the door to the target’s office. I stopped when I felt a hard, metal object hit my upper back and clatter across the floor. I turned around, rolling my eyes as I spotted the discarded gun and John’s form approaching me in a few quick strides.

“You don’t think I’m gonna let you take the kill, do you?” he questioned, his hands coming to his hips.

“Why do you always last resort to throwing guns at people, John?” I huffed reaching behind me and rubbing the area the gun hit. I pointed my gun at him after, daring him to do something.

“That’s not my last resort,” he smirked. His hands dropped to his belt, quickly unfastening it and sliding it from the loops with a quick snap. He made a show of folding it in half and snapping the two halves together, “I’ll fight you for it.” He released one end, letting the belt extend to the floor while he tilted his head and challenged me to shoot first.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one of the target’s men enter the room with his gun drawn. I snapped my aim to the man’s head, over John’s shoulder, and fired once. The man slumped to the floor in a heap with a hole in his head. I pointed my gun back at John, who wore a stupid grin on his face. I glanced at my gun, seeing the slide locked in the rear of the gun to tell me it was empty. I took a page out of John’s book, chucking the gun at his head. He side stepped the projectile easily, chuckling at my attempt.

I threw my hands up in a shrug, “Zero out of ten, would not try that again.”

I lunged at him, narrowly missing being slapped by the belt as I ducked under it. I stepped on his bent leg, using it to climb his body and get my legs around his neck. I swung my body through the take down, sending him to the floor.

“I was here first, John. I did half of the work already,” I defended verbally, dodging another swing of his belt as he got up.

He folded the belt in half, threading his free hand through the loop and twisting it into a defense weapon. I moved to strike him, but he deflected me, allowing his arm to slide the belt along the back of my neck and around until he was choking me.

“Yet, the only reason you’re up is because I distracted them for you,” he almost growled in my ear.

I had managed to squeeze my fingers in between the belt and my neck before he tightened too much. He was close behind me since the belt was short while folded in half, so I threw my head back into his chin and elbowed him in the ribs repeatedly until his grip on the belt loosened. I grabbed one of his arms and flipped him over my shoulder, using my hips as leverage since he was so much bigger than I was. He landed on his back but immediately flipped over so he could push himself up. I was faster, driving a knee in his back to keep him down.

“We’ll go halfsies,” I requested, pulling his head up by his hair.

“Not a chance, Y/N,” he gritted out.

The office door opening caught both of our attentions, as the target stuck half his body out of the door. The hand not holding onto John’s hair, reached under my pant leg and grabbed a knife. I flung it at the target, the knife embedding itself into his throat.

My knee didn’t hold John for very long as he still managed to stand up with me attached to him. Me stealing the kill didn’t help the situation either. John was pissed. He basically threw me off his back, sending me sliding into the, now open, office. I shoved the legs of the dead target out of the way as I scrambled to get up before John could get to me. My movements were interrupted by the sting of the belt coming down across the top of my ass. While it hurt, I tried to bite back a moan but failed. The room got quiet except for our labored breathing. I glanced back at John, who was equally as shocked as I was.

“You enjoyed that?” he questioned with a tilt of his head.

“Go fuck yourself,” I muttered, standing up and searching for a weapon on the desk in the office.

I wasn’t fast enough, soon finding myself trapped between the desk and John’s chest. His hand found the back of my neck, forcing my face down into the desk. I felt the sting of the belt on one side of my ass, causing me to flinch away but moan still.

“You really do enjoy it,” he said in awe, almost to himself, as if he didn’t believe what he heard the first time.

“Fuck you,” I huffed, trying to get out of his grasp. I was only met with another strike of the belt.

“I mean, if you want to,” he chuckled, making a joke out of my cursing.

“I haven’t had decent dick in a while, so excuse me,” I mumbled against the desk.

“Ask and you shall receive,” he rumbled lowly behind me.

A weak plea escaped my lips at his words, “Please.”

I heard the belt clank next to my face on the desk. His free hand reached around and found the button of my pants, flicking it open. He dragged the zipper down and yanked down the garments until his eyes could see my bare ass. Fuck, was this really happening? His dress shoe-clad foot stepped in my pants, dragging them down my legs further. His hand left my neck briefly to work on his pants. I raised my upper body slightly, only to have my head forced back down to the desk.

“Stay,” he growled.

This time, when he removed his hand, I stayed put. I released a shaky breath that I didn’t know I was holding, the anticipation killing me slowly. It wasn’t long before I felt his length slide along my entrance. My needy whimper was satisfied seconds later as he filled me roughly. I gasped at the intrusion while my fingers scrambled for anything to hold on to. His hips met mine hard and fast, the whole ordeal almost coming to an end too quickly for his liking. His entire body stilled, forcing some self discipline into the situation. My imminent high slowly started to disappear farther from my grasp the longer he waited.

“Don’t toy with me, John, I swear I’ll—”

I didn’t get to finish my frustrated threat because he was grabbing the belt and forcing it between my open lips. I bit down on it almost too willingly, the ends being held behind my head by a single, large hand.

“I think I liked it better when you couldn’t speak,” he whispered harshly, tugging on the belt slightly. I mumbled angrily around the belt at his words. His hand came down on the reddened side of my ass, another moan escaping my lips. “You done?”

I let out a frustrated growl but nodded anyway. I moaned pitifully in the back of my throat as his hips resumed a slightly slower pace. In a hideout full of dead bodies, the only sounds were our sighs, grunts, and skin meeting repeatedly. It was still all over too quickly, but we couldn’t chance anybody else coming in and catch us off guard with our pants literally around our ankles. I could imagine it, The Baba Yaga finally killed because he stopped for a quickie.

I caught my breath while laying on the desk, moving my aching jaw as John’s grip on the belt finally loosened. As quickly as he had entered me, he pulled away. I heaved myself up, not bothering to clean up until I got back to The Continental. I turned around, facing him and seeing a few beads of sweat disappear into his beard.

“You owe me a new belt,” he stated, holding up the strip of leather with teeth marks along the middle of it.

“That’s dramatic,” I rolled my eyes, running my fingers along the marks that looked like they would vanish in a day. “I’ll wire you half, ‘kay?” I strode over to the target’s body, snapping a picture and sending it as proof of completion.

“You already paid me, but if you’re feeling generous…” he trailed off, securing the belt back around his pants. “Need a ride?”

“Your car or you?” I asked, following him out of a back entrance.

His laughter echoed off the corridor walls, “Both.” 

PART 2

Taglist: @cuttlefishcatfish @anita-e-taylor @synesthesiasocks @samanthagraceg @beyond-antares

[sending-the-message]

Suicide by Search Engine by M59Gar

I'll admit it, I was suicidal. On a spectacularly bad day in a particularly lonely month during a rather bleak winter, I wasn't really feeling the whole life thing anymore. I'd been unhappy before, and even depressed, but this was different. This felt like a hot knife of pain prodding me to action; where before thoughts of suicide had only ever been hypothetical, now the world seemed filled with the promise of sweet relief at every turn. Sidewalk curbs begged me to trip and smash my head, traffic jovially requested I leap out onto the street, and friendly steel rods in the construction site next to my house were always poking out and waving me over to get impaled.

The only thing that saved me was the helpless and horrified feeling that this urge was coming from outside myself. The little man riding around in my brain—the little man that looked out my eyes and spoke my thoughts to himself—was not trying to sail my body against the reefs of traffic and steel rods. He was trying to brave the storm despite feeling hopeless; it was something else that was trying to crash us against the rocks and destroy us.

Chemicals. It's chemicals in the brain, you see. I looked it up online. Between a thousand different searches for ways to kill myself, I also managed to open a suicide prevention forum. All I managed to post was help, but that was enough. Kind souls contacted moderators, concerned moderators contacted police, tired police contacted doctors, and grim men in white uniforms took me to a special hospital.

For a long time, I was disconnected from the world. It was summer by the time the doctors found the right combination and dosages of medicines to balance the storm in my brain, but the day I finally walked out of that facility, it was beautiful and warm out.

And I wanted to live!

I waved at a passerby. She was very old, but took the effort to wave back and even smile.

Oh my God, could you imagine what I might have done? What I might have missed out on? I bought donuts from a shop with change that had been in my clothes in storage at the facility for six months.

I sat on a bench and broke down in tears while human beings milled left and right around me. Do you know what it is to be alive? You get to talk to other aware beings. You get to have ideas and share them and have those ideas refuted, entertained, or accepted. You get to build things. You get to eat things.

Like donuts.

For fifteen minutes, I sat on that bench near that bus stop crying profusely while eating donuts. When people asked if I was alright, I just told them that these were really good donuts.

I didn't have money for the bus since I'd spent it on treats, but the orderlies had let me charge my phone before departing. I loaded up the Internet for the first time in half a year and mapped the way home. It was a beautiful day! I would walk.

No specific turn was in itself scary. It was too slow a change for that. It was only after two hours of walking that I looked around, saw homeless men, drug addicts, and openly carried pistols that I realized I was in a very bad part of town. I clutched my phone tight and continually checked the mapping program. It insisted that my next turn was down a dark and trash-filled alley, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Rising city heat caused gold waves of evening light to dapple the street; in that back and forth light, I saw unhappy eyes look my way.

Time to move on. Screw that.

I found a rundown gas station and asked for directions inside. The attendant listened to my question from behind his security glass and told me I was way off. The part of town I was looking for was practically in the opposite direction.

Well, maybe the maps program in my phone was six months out of date. Maybe that was it. I got to walking and left the bad part of town before night fell, and I reached my apartment around three in the morning. All my bills had been on automatic payment, and thank God for that. My landlord had probably never even noticed I'd been away, but I did have a massive pile of mail just inside the door.

I left it for later and crashed in bed, my bed, my home. It was good to be alive.

But I had no food!

Getting out my phone, I looked up twenty-four-hour pizza places. There'd been two before I'd gone away. What had they been called?

While beginning to type in my search, I froze. After each of the first three letters in pizza, the autocomplete search had filled in: please kill me, pick the best way to die, pizza poison buried in cheese.

I was very unhappily reminded of all the searches I'd made online... before. I cleared my browser cache and put my phone down. I wasn't hungry anymore.

And I thought that would be the end of it.

The next morning, I had a text.

West Columbus Drug & Food Rx: NATHAN, your Rx is due now. Reply REFILL to fill. HELP for more info & STOP to opt out of Rx Alerts. CANCEL to cancel Rx.

I typed in refill and hit send. I was really hungry, but it was important I took my medication in the right amounts and on time. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and headed down to the store. I waited in line for twenty minutes only to be told they didn't have my prescription on file. I argued with the pharmacist calmly for a minute until I checked my phone to show them I'd just sent REFILL—and I saw that somehow my reply had autocorrected to CANCEL.

The pharmacist apologized but told me I'd have to have the facility send another prescription. Strict insurance rules, nothing they could do.

I sighed. It was fine, whatever. I stepped outside to call the facility. I'd hoped it would be longer before I contacted them again, but it was important, so I hit the contact number for Sunnybrook and waited with the phone to my ear.

Nothing happened.

After about ten seconds, I lowered my phone and looked at it.

I wasn't even in a call.

I'd somehow accidentally hit 'delete' and the confirmation, removing the contact from my phone. Sighing, I went the phone's browser and began to type in the name of the facility to get their phone number all over again.

The search autocompleted as I typed: Sin to kill yourself?, Sucks to be alive, Sunday the best day of the week to die, Sunny weather increases suicide risk study says.

My finger stopped four letters in. I shivered from some sourceless chill. This wasn't funny anymore—if it had ever been—and I angrily cleared my browser cache again.

Bitter, I waited a tick, and then typed in the letter 'k':

kill yourself

Of course. Online companies had massive profiles that held all the data every one of us had ever put online. I'd made thousands of searches about suicide before losing contact with the Internet completely for six months, and all that data was stored on a server somewhere linked to my particular phone. Shaking with anger and a strange kind of abused-puppy fear, I let the phone slip from my hands before kicking it as hard as I could while it fell. It soared out onto the street and exploded before being run over by seven different cars.

Screw you. Just screw you. A mindless artifact of technology had left residue of my mental issues on the Internet, that was all. I just needed to get a new phone and put it out of my head.

I walked to Sunnybrook and talked to a nurse in person to have my prescription refilled.

I walked back to the drug store in person to get my medicine.

I took my medicine and began to feel better almost immediately.

The next day, I went in person to a tech store and got a new phone. New number, new everything, no connection to the old. I walked out of there happy as could be.

Once I got home, I sighed, stretched, looked around my apartment, and said to myself, "Maybe I should go see a movie." I'd never been one to leave my solitude for any reason, but now life was good, and I was even feeling a little bit outgoing. I got my new phone out to see what was playing.

I typed the letter 'm' and the search autocompleted to movies in my area now that I'm feeling better.

"What the hell?"

Coincidence. It had to be. I began to type again: movies about Hell.

No.

It wasn't possible.

Or—

I moved my phone's listening end up to my mouth and said as if I was talking to someone I'd brought home, "Hey Jessica, I feel like seeing an action movie. What about you?"

Alright, continue typing: movies good action date.

It was listening to me.

It was fucking listening to me!

New technology. It had to be. But was the microphone simply always on? Were people okay with this? When I'd gone in for treatment, there'd been a privacy outrage. Had things shifted back hard the other way in the last six months?

I'd paid cash for the phone. I wondered if it was learning about its new user. Still pretending I was talking to a non-existent Jessica, I said, "Yeah, my friends usually call me that as a nickname, but my real name is Nathan."

I started to type into my phone again, but a severe amount of interface lag seemed to be slowing things down. After a good twenty seconds of frustrated typing that did nothing, the letters I'd hit all appeared again in the search bar.

moviesiesiesaoishdoihoeishkyou are dead Nathan

Nearly dropping my phone like it had turned into a rattlesnake in my hand, I caught it back at the last second. I had to be hallucinating, right? I deleted the search and then typed again.

movie you killed yourself 188 days ago

Shivering, I stared at that message for an interminable period. What the hell was going on here? I didn't feel dead. At long last, I said aloud, "No I didn't!"

movie the data doesn't lie searched for suicide three months followed by zero data you died

"You think I killed myself because I went off the grid," I breathed aloud, not quite believing what I was interacting with. Had neural learning algorithms actually developed a sort of proto-consciousness through analyzing massive amounts of data? One of my acquaintances was a programmer, and he'd been talking about something just like this when—

movie anomaly will be corrected further data for dead profile must be prevented

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I didn't like what was happening, so I turned off my phone and left it near my sink.

That night, I did not go out.

I did not see a movie.

All I could think about was what might happen if I used my credit card. The online data conglomerates would see that, and whatever it was that thought I was dead would know. If I withdrew cash from an ATM, it would know. I was stuck.

But this was crazy, right?

It had to be a side effect of the medicines. I was imagining things.

The next day, I used my credit card at a Starbucks.

I was so stupid. Oh my God, so stupid...

Two days after that coffee, the mailman died in an explosion that blew my door off its hinges. A mistake in components shipping for a military contractor near Columbus had somehow sent dangerous materials to my address. I found all this out in person from an apologetic military lawyer. They offered to pay for my door; I told him to talk to the landlord.

Because me? I'm running. Big Data thinks I'm dead, and they, or it, have gone from analyzing their information to trying to make it true.

I'm posting this anonymously. My name is not Nathan. But I bet someone or some thing knows what my name really is... and it knows all about you, too. Be careful what information you give out. The things you say around your phone or the things you search online may come back to haunt you.

Literally. Beware the ghost in the machine. It is always watching, always listening—even if you think your phone is off.

+++