#my muse ...

“okay. they’re gone.”

his fatigue exists in a whisper, a harsh sound, biting through a clenched jaw. his hand presses against the brick wall he leans on, counts to five, and peeks around the corner. a single, momentary sigh of relief, minute, really. barely noticeable unless one looked for it. he had a sneaking suspicion amelie had been. it didn’t bother him too much. having someone to watch his back on occasion was useful--these days, that took form in amelie lacroix. rather odd, considering her amorphous nature, a shadow among shadows . . . she, like john wick himself, blended into even the most inane of environs. 

“some days are too close for comfort.”

it’s a philosophy he doesn’t exactly ascribe to, he believes in his own ability, he believes in the color of the world as it passes by--the predictable things, the things he can count and manage. there is no too close for comfort in john’s world, there is always i am alive but my fuse is burning short--any day now. but he says it for her sake, for the sake of his appearance as a man and not a specter, not an amorphous thing. he half-circles past her, throws a careful glance down the trash littered alleyway, and taps her shoulder. 

“we’ll move, soon. be sure to keep an eye on the fire escapes. good place for ambushes.” 

he says this with certainty, with experience as the ambusher and the ambushee. he has imprinted memories on all latticework, on all manhole covers and dimly lit corners of clubs. the world does not know john wick, but they have heard his ghost hidden under the scent of gunpowder and rot. it is an intrinsic, accepted truth. he is a myth without being the subject of it, a conspiracy without wonder. 

“are you alright, amelie? we’ll be home soon.” there is a pause that isn’t a pause, but a moment to consider a smile, a further tap on her shoulder, anything to close the distance between them and render some form of intimacy from their current predicament. “together, and safe.”