#keanuverse

Untitled piece

"So, what do you do?"

"I hunt."

"Like…a wildlife management professional?"

"No, people. I hunt people. I work for the mob."

You still have the glass of wine just inches away from your tinted lips. You take a long, slow sip to mask your disbelief and growing panic.

"Don't worry, I keep my range limited to the underground itself. No civilians."

Is that supposed to make you feel better?

John reads to you in seconds. Of course he does. He's an expert in reading body language and gestures. You initially thought he was in the military or something.

"Oh..wow...eh…"

'Shocked' would probably be an understatement. All the regular sounds of the restaurant turn muffled, irrelevant against your drumming heart. You glance up at him. Deep brown orbs are studying as if you are a peculiar bird in a cage.

You're fucked.

Second date, and you are already in love with this man who is probably pranking you or plans to kill you.

Why would he reveal his identity on his second date otherwise?

"Is it like an elaborate joke or something?" You let out a nervous huff of laughter.

"I understand how this might feel, but I wanted to come clean to the woman I wish to spend the rest of my life with."

That makes you quirk your eyebrows.

That's fast.

"Um, you have decided that by the second date?"

In all honesty, you have known John for about six months. You first met him under the roof of a quaint bookstore tucked away at the corner of an old street that you both frequent, yet somehow, over a couple of years, you never crossed paths...until six months ago.

Six months isn't enough to decide if you are going to spend the rest of your life with someone. At least not for you.

"I have known you long enough."

"Six months isn't long enough, John."

His eyes twinkle with amusement as he nods, "Agreed."

"And…honeslty…"

Better be honest than sorry.

"Honestly, I don't think this will work. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with you being a…"

"A hitman? I keep my business far away from my personal life. I understand you will need some time to settle in. But I assure you that I do not intend to continue for long. I have enough to retire comfortably."

"In your 30s?"

He smirks and shrugs as if talking about the weather.

"I plan on pursuing bookbinding; maybe we could open a bookstore of our own."

"Wait, wait, wait. That's not what I'm going."

"Sorry, yes, please continue."

"Uh, it's awkward but very reasonable. You would understand…"

You take a sharp breath before spilling it out carefully, gently, hoping that you don't make it to his list he probably keeps in a leather-bound diary.

"You have been nothing but good to me, and you are a perfect gentleman, but I'm afraid this would not work out. Regardless of whether you retire or not…I'm sorry, John."

The silence is thick. But you are sure his sharpened gaze can cut through it. He looks down at his wine and takes a slow sip. It seems deliberate, making you wait until it turns uncomfortable.

"What would you like for dessert?"

You blink.

That's it? No reaction?

Is it a good sign or…

No, no, no, this isn't good.

Your gut is screaming at you to pick up your purse and leave, never turn back and block him and well, maybe move to another city.

But that's just you overthinking, right?

"Uh, I know how this might feel. I wish it could have been different."

You are surprised at your own composure and numbness. You know your heart is cracking, but you have yet to feel it. Good, you can sob in the safety of your apartment.

John sighs and puts down his glass.

"I understand how you might feel, but I'm afraid you have misunderstood. This isn't the end."

You frown, not sure if the lump in your throat is from heartbreak or fear.

"Sorry?"

John leans forward, words slowing as if to ease them into your comprehension.

"What I mean is, turning me down isn't an option. You are mine, and that is all you need to understand. You can be either eventually warm up and settle down and or naively cling to the idea that you are ever getting away. That's up to you."

Oh yes, you are fucked.

『••✎••』

The house was quiet in the way old houses are when they think no one's listening—creaks swallowed by thick walls, the low hum of the fridge in the kitchen below like distant breathing. John Wick woke to none of it at first. Just the headache. A slow, insistent hammer behind his left eye, spreading like spilled ink across his skull. Not the sharp crack of a concussion, not the burn of a hangover. Something duller, chemical. Familiar in a way that made the hair on his forearms stand up before his mind caught up.

He didn't move. Not yet.

The bedroom smelled the same as always: faint gun oil from the night before, clean linen, and something else. Something sweet and burnt, like toast pushed too far. His gun was on the nightstand, right where he remembered leaving it, but the carelessness of it—unsecured, while he slept like a stone—was a warning bell clanging in the silence that only he could hear. Years of conditioning screamed at him. He never slept this deep. Never.

His hands went to his neck, feeling for puncture marks, but all he found was skin, clammy with a sweat that wasn't from exertion. The last thing he remembered... nothing. A book, maybe? The lamplight on the page, the weight of it in his hands. Then this. This void. This unnatural, forced stillness in his limbs, the heaviness in his head that made even lifting it a chore.

A different fear began to creep in, colder than the thought of intruders. He pushed himself up, the room tilting slightly before settling. He ignored it. He moved with a grim efficiency, checking the magazine in the pistol—a full clip, untouched—and chambering a round with a soft, lethal click that was the only real sound in the room. He padded across the hardwood, bare feet silent, checking corners, the empty bathroom, the shadowed space behind the door. Clear.

His next thought was you. Your room. He was at your door in three long strides, the gun now tucked into the waistband of his pants from habit as much as necessity. He didn't knock, only eased it open a fraction, then wider when he saw the empty bed, sheets thrown back in a tangle. You were an immovable object on weekend mornings, a lump beneath the covers until well past noon. Even as late as he’d apparently slept, you should still be there. This wrongness was piling up.

Then came the noise.

A clatter from downstairs. Loud. Metallic. The unmistakable sound of a pan hitting the tile floor, followed by a muttered curse that was definitely yours.

He was moving before the echo even died, fluid and silent despite the fog in his head. He took the stairs two at a time, gun back in his hand, every nerve humming. He cleared the living room, the dining nook, every shadow a potential threat. He rounded the corner into the kitchen, ready for anything—

—and then he saw you.

You were on your hands and knees, muttering under your breath as you swiped at something on the floor with a dishrag. Your back was to him, your movements clumsy, rushed. In front of you, the stovetop was a disaster zone. A pan sat askew, egg sputtering messily over the sides. A bowl was tipped over, spilling what looked like shredded cheese onto the counter. The air was thick with the smell of burnt butter and cooking eggs.

He saw you, unharmed, completely absorbed in your chaotic mission, and the tension drained out of him so fast it left him dizzy. The gun was holstered in his waistband, the motion so fluid and practiced you wouldn't have even registered he'd been holding it.

You wouldn’t have noticed his presence either if it wasn’t for the sudden jolt of pain that flared in his head, causing him to lean against the doorframe with a quiet groan. You froze, spinning around, the rag dropping from your hand.

You looked like a deer caught in headlights, and when your eyes met his, you didn't have to say a word. He saw it. The guilt. The panic. The plan that had gone spectacularly, obviously wrong.

That wrongness from before snapped into focus with crystal clarity, because now he remembered something from the night before, a fleeting image of you handing him a glass of water, your smile a little too bright as you’d wished him a good night. He never took anything from anyone, not even water, without checking it first. Except you. He trusted you.

He straightened up, ignoring the throb behind his eye, letting the silence stretch, letting the weight of it press down on you. If he wasn’t so wrung out, he might have even managed to look angry, but the drug had leeched that away. He had to settle for something far more dangerous: disappointment.

“What did you do?” His voice was rough, low. Not a question. An indictment.

You flinched, picking at a loose thread on your apron. “I... I made you breakfast?” It came out as a squeak. A weak offering.

“The headache,” he continued, stepping further into the kitchen, his eyes scanning the mess, then landing back on your face. “What was it?”

“Just... something to help you sleep,” you mumbled, your gaze fixed on your shoes. “You're a light sleeper. And I'm... well, this.” You gestured vaguely at the culinary crime scene surrounding you. “I didn't want a gun in my face the second I dropped a spoon.”

The logic was infuriatingly, endearingly stupid. And he was about to tell you so, to lecture you on the hundred different ways that could have gone wrong, on the fact that he sleeps light for a reason, on the sheer, unmitigated danger of rendering yourself defenseless like that, of rendering him defenseless. But then he saw it. On the counter, peeking out from under a flour-dusted towel. A small, worn notebook, its pages yellowed with age.

He moved toward it slowly, and you didn't stop him. He picked it up. The cover was blank, but inside, in a looping, elegant script he hadn't seen in years, was a list. A recipe. And at the top, written in the same graceful hand, were the words: “John's Favorite.”

Helen's handwriting.

The breath he didn't know he was holding escaped him in a long, silent rush. He looked from the book to the disaster on the stove, and then to you, who was watching him now with wide, apprehensive eyes. And he understood. Every burnt piece of toast, every spilled ingredient, the whole insane, desperate plan. It wasn't about the noise. It was about this. About this book you'd found, about the recipe you'd tried to recreate.

“I...” he started, and had to clear his throat. He looked back down at the book, at the recipe for a mushroom and cheese omelette that Helen had perfected, that he hadn't tasted in... God. Years. He hadn't even known this book existed. “You found this.”

You nodded, your lower lip trembling slightly. “In a box in the attic. I just... I wanted to... I know it's not the same.”

He looked at the omelette sizzling in the pan. It was lopsided, slightly brown on one side, cheese leaking out like a wound. It was a mess. It was nothing like hers.

But it was there.

He put the book down carefully, reverently, on a clean patch of counter. He turned back to you, and when he spoke again, the anger was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that had nothing to do with the drug in his system. “Why? Why go to all this trouble?”

You looked down at your feet, then back up at him, and for the first time, you looked less like a criminal and more like a child who was desperately hoping they hadn't broken something irreplaceable.

“It's Father's Day,” you said, your voice barely a whisper.

The words hit him harder than any bullet. Father's Day. A day that had never existed in his world. It could’ve, maybe. If things had been different. If she'd still been here, if they'd had a chance... but that path had been closed off long ago. He'd locked it himself, buried it under so much death and violence he'd forgotten the key. It was just another date on the calendar, another ghost to ignore.

But in that moment, as he stood in a kitchen that smelled of burnt butter and a desperate attempt at normalcy, he realized that for you, it wasn't. It was still real. And in your world, he was the closest thing you had.

The day he saved you, the day he took you in, he hadn't been thinking about fatherhood. He'd been thinking about debt. About a promise. About a life that needed protecting from the one he'd made for himself. He was a weapon, a tool, a ghost. Not a parent.

Clearly he wasn’t a very good one, either, if you thought drugging him was an acceptable solution to a problem.

He gestured towards the stove with a slow, deliberate movement. “Turn it off.”

You scrambled to obey, twisting the knob with a clatter. The sizzling died down, leaving only the hum of the refrigerator. The silence that followed was heavy, charged with unspoken words.

“Sit,” he said, not unkindly, pointing to a stool at the kitchen island.

You sat, your hands folded in your lap, looking like you were awaiting sentencing. He leaned against the counter opposite you, the ache in his head a dull thrumming now. He had to get this through your head. He had to make you understand.

“Do you have any idea what you did?” he began, his voice low and even. “What could have happened?”

You started to speak, but he held up a hand, and you closed your mouth.

“Whatever you gave me, it put me out. Completely. Someone could have come through that door,” he nodded towards the front of the house, “and I wouldn't have known. Not until it was too late.” He paused, letting that sink in. “You seen the news lately? You know the kind of people who are still looking for me? They don't knock. They don't care if there's a child in the house. All they care about is settling a score. And in that state, I couldn't have protected you. I couldn't have protected anyone.”

He could see the shame in your eyes, the way you were shrinking into yourself. Good. You needed to feel it. But then he saw something else. Defiance. A spark of it, buried under the guilt.

“We were safe,” you mumbled, so quietly he almost didn't hear it. “I made sure of it. I locked the doors. I was awake.”

“That's not the point!” The words came out sharper than he intended, a crack of thunder in the quiet kitchen. He took a breath, reining it in. “You can't. You can't ever do that again. You hear me?”

You looked up at him, your chin jutting out just a little. That spark flaring brighter. “You slept for eight hours.”

He stared at you. The non-sequitur threw him. “What?”

“Eight hours,” you repeated, a little louder this time. “I checked. You haven't slept for eight hours since I've known you. Probably longer.” You looked him straight in the eye, and your words were a direct hit. “You probably had the best sleep you've had in a long time.”

The silence stretched again. He had no answer for that. Because you were right. He hadn't realized it until you said it, but it was true. The drug had forced a level of unconsciousness on him that was a foreign country. A stolen moment of peace he hadn't even known he was desperate for. He couldn't remember the last time he'd woken up without a phantom pain in his shoulder, without the echo of a gunshot in his memory. This morning, all he had was the headache. And even that was fading.

He looked at the omelette sitting cold in its pan. A mess. A failure by any culinary standard. An insult to Helen's memory.

And yet.

He thought of the hours you must have spent, poring over that book, deciphering her handwriting, trying to mimic a love you could only know secondhand. He thought of the courage it must have taken to spike the water of a man like him, to risk his anger for the sake of a surprise. He thought of the quiet desperation in your voice when you'd said, “Father's Day.”

He sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of every life he'd ever taken. He pushed himself away from the counter and walked over to the stove. He picked up the pan, looked at the sad, lopsided creation within. And then he did something that surprised you as much as it surprised him.

He grabbed a fork from the drawer, stabbed a piece of the omelette, and put it in his mouth.

It was… fine. A little bland. The cheese was clumpy. The mushrooms were slightly undercooked. It tasted of effort and burnt butter and a clumsy, unwavering affection that he hadn't realized he was starving for.

He chewed slowly, swallowed. He looked over at you. You were watching him, your whole body tensed, waiting for a verdict.

“We're going to have a talk about boundaries,” he said, his voice still serious. “A long one. You're going to promise me, on your life, that you will never do anything like that again.”

You nodded, your eyes wide, a tear finally escaping and tracing a path down your cheek. “I promise.”

"Good," he said. He took another bite. He wasn't hungry, not really, but he ate it anyway. He ate it because it was the only way he knew how to say what he couldn't bring himself to say. That he saw you. That he understood. That in the middle of all the darkness, all the blood, all the grief, this ridiculous, burnt omelette was the realest thing he'd touched in years.

Dog finally trotted into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of food and the strange quiet. He looked at John, then at you, then back at the floor, where a small pile of shredded cheese still lay. He sniffed at it, looked up at John for permission.

John gave a short, almost imperceptible nod. Dog promptly began to clean up your mess with quiet enthusiasm.

It broke the tension. You let out a watery laugh, swiping at your eyes with the back of your hand. “He's a better cook than I am.”

“He has lower standards,” John said, finishing the last of the omelette. He put the empty pan in the sink. The silence that followed was different now. Softer. Less like a void and more like a space. A place where something could be built.

He leaned against the sink, watching the way you'd finally relaxed your shoulders, the way you were now trying to subtly wipe down the counter with your sleeve. It reminded him of the day you met.

Aurelio had called him in for a favor. And given everything that he did for him, it was the least John could do. Aurelio never did ask for much.

Of course, John had assumed it was going to be about a body. It was always about a body. A clean-up, a disposal, a message sent.

Instead, he had found you. Huddled in the back office, knees pulled to your chest, not crying, just… staring at the wall with a vacant expression that was far more unsettling than tears. Turns out, you were the lone witness to a deal gone sour. A child in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were a loose end.

And in their world, loose ends get cut.

Aurelio found you in the aftermath, huddled behind a stack of tires. He’d hidden you, kept you safe while he figured out what to do. And what he did was call John. Because John understood loose ends. And because John, for all the lives he had taken, was the one person Aurelio knew if he asked to protect a life, he’d do it. No questions asked.

Granted, you weren’t in immediate danger anymore. The ones who had been there were taken care of, thanks to John. But in this life, any day could be the wrong day, in the wrong place.

Aurelio had told him he'd find you a new life, a safe house somewhere, far away from all of this. He told John he didn't have to make it personal.

But John had looked at you then, at the sheer, stubborn refusal to break, and he'd seen something he hadn't seen in a very long time. A spark. A future that hadn't been extinguished. And he knew he couldn't just drop you off and walk away. He’d already given up one future. He couldn't bear to stand by and watch another be snuffed out.

So he took you home.

He had no idea what to do with you. The quiet, empty house that had been a mausoleum of memories was suddenly filled with the small, living sounds of another person. The creak of a floorboard at two in the morning when you got a glass of water. The thud of a book being dropped. The quiet murmur of you talking to yourself as you did your homework.

He'd given you a room, a key, a set of rules. He'd taught you basic self-defense. How to fire a pistol, though he hoped to God you'd never have to. How to be aware of your surroundings. How to look like you belonged, even when you felt like you didn't.

He thought he was preparing you for the world. But in reality, you were remaking his. Slowly, piece by piece. Daisy would’ve been the first, he supposed. But she was gone before she could truly teach him. Then Dog, a silent, loyal anchor. Then you. You, with your ridiculous television shows, your constant questions about the mechanics of a car, your insistence on leaving the lights on in every room you entered. You, who saw a semi-retired assassin and somehow saw a dad.

He looked at you now, scrubbing at a stain on the counter with a ferocity that suggested it had personally offended you. And he felt something shift inside him, a tectonic plate of grief settling, revealing a new, unfamiliar landscape beneath.

“It needs salt,” he said.

You stopped scrubbing and looked up at him, your brow furrowed. “What?”

“The omelette,” he said, gesturing with his thumb towards the now-empty pan in the sink. “Helen always used a little more salt. And a pinch of paprika.”

A slow smile spread across your face, tentative at first, then brilliant. It was the first real smile he'd seen from you all morning. “I knew I forgot something,” you said, your voice light with relief.

He watched you for a moment longer, the smile still playing on your lips, the way your shoulders were no longer hunched around your ears. The headache was gone, replaced by a feeling he couldn't name. It was close to peace. Close to contentment.

He pushed himself away from the sink. “I'm going for a walk,” he said, the words feeling strange in his mouth. A walk. For no reason other than to walk. He hadn't done that in years.

You nodded, your smile softening. “Okay. I'll... I'll clean up in here.”

He turned to leave, but stopped at the doorway. He didn't look back at you. He kept his gaze fixed on the hallway, on the sliver of morning light cutting across the floor.

“Next year,” he said, his voice quiet but clear. “Wake me up. Normally.”

He didn't wait for an answer. He just walked away, the sound of Dog's claws clicking on the hardwood floor as the dog trotted after him. He didn't need to look back to know you were smiling. He could feel it all the way down the hall.

You were still getting grounded. For a week. Minimum. But right now, as he stepped out into the cool morning air, the sun on his face, he felt lighter than he had in a very, very long time. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the world outside the walls of their house didn't feel like a threat. It just felt... like a Sunday. A quiet, ordinary, perfect Sunday. And for a man like him, that was the most dangerous feeling of all. Because that meant he had something to lose again. And he’d be damned if he let anyone take it away again.