“I have no regrets in meeting you, friend. Should the day ever come that we are not together, you will continue to shine like GOLD in my memories.”
✪ INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR ✪
You can call me VERA. The PRONOUNS I use are they/she; please be respectful of that. I enjoy reading and writing, obviously, but I also love to play video games and discuss history, music, film, and so on.
If you’re curious, here is a link to my SPOTIFY to see what I am listening to. If you enjoy my works and would like to support me outside of Tumblr, consider donating to my KOFI page, where I update about my current writing progress, upcoming post layouts, upcoming projects and series, and more!
✪ BOUNDARIES ✪
DO NOT INTERACT with me or my account whatsoever if you are generally a bad person—if you have to ask what falls under that umbrella, then it's likely you aren't welcome. PLEASE USE tone indicators with me, as I have a difficult time gauging tone through text and do not want to get the wrong idea from what you are saying.
✪ WRITTEN WORKS ✪
By following the link provided, you will be directed to my MASTERLISTS. I write ‘x reader’ fanfiction and have for quite a while, so these masterlists hold every written work I’ve created on this account, sorted by fandom, character, and series (if applicable).
RULES FOR REQUESTING can be found, which, as their title states, are my rules and guidelines for requesting when it comes to written work. Please check back every so often to see if my requests are open (if they are not and I am sent a request, it will get ignored or deleted).
You can also find my WRITING EVENTS at the provided link, which are current or closed events I coordinated to celebrate milestones in my writing career here on Tumblr. Additionally, my WORKS IN PROGRESS can be found here if you're interested.
✪ MOST RECENT POSTS ✪
the unbearable weight of massive talent
✪ WHERE MY ATTENTION IS AT ✪
ALBUM ON REPEAT Collide With The Sky (2012) by Pierce the Veil
CURRENTLY WATCHING Fallout (2024) dir. Jonathan Nolan et al.
CHARACTER BRAINROT The world's most offensive streamer, the cat lover and keyboard breaker, Jschlatt.
Which video game character do you most identify with (and why, if you like)?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
OMG! I NEVER ANSWERED THIS!
My answer to this question is very easy, though: it's 100% Paravati from the Outer Worlds. (Fun fact: I actually won a sweepstakes by giving this same answer, lol.)
I played the game for the first time back in high school (during lockdown, mind you), and I was learning a lot of things about myself—who I was, both in terms of being gender non-conforming and what kind of person I wanted to be.
She was one of the first openly queer characters I ever saw in a video game (she's asexual), and she was so sweet, wanted to explore the world, learn about everything, et cetera. She was just like me, I thought, and so she'll forever be not just a character I relate to but the one I love the most.
Hey Crow, out of curiosity, have you heard of Nebula's Civilisation? Its a pretty small fandom, but I think you'd like it (no pressure though, have a good day) :)
Ooooh, I haven't. Gave it a quick look up and it looks interesting though! Would you care to share more info about it? Or do you reckon I should just jump into it and learn for myself?
I FORGOT ABOUT THE NIKOLAI MILITARY BAR FIC HOLY FUCK
It's literally my holy grail of Nikolai fics, it's literally everything to me. I think I sent an ask ages ago telling you it was the best Nikolai fic I've ever read and I STAND ON THAT STILL
your reblog reminded me of it and I ATE THAT SHIT UP YUM YUM
STOP I’LL CRY 😭🥹🖤
You’re the sweetest omg. It’s been so long since I posted that or anything Nikolai related, I honestly need to get back into writing for him cause he’s so 🤤🥴.
Thank you so much for sending this ask, though. Genuinely made my day reading this
RATING R - Restricted [ Content warnings : 18+ mdni, smut, dom!Nikolai, fem!sub!virgin!reader, alcohol consumption, strong language, thigh riding, heavy make-out session, praise with heavier degradation, oral fixation, fingering, size difference, loss of virginity, corruption kink, p in v sex, mirror sex, hair pulling, spanking ]
SYNOPSIS You didn't know that it was a military bar, so you had no warning about all of the pent up soldiers that have their eyes on you and your friends. As most of them leave to have fun of their own, you don't. Why? Because you're a virgin. To your luck (or loss), a particular Russian pilot has his eyes set on you, and he intends to make the most of your first time that will have you crawling back for more.
WORD COUNT 11.3k (Too fucking much.)
The cold air bites harshly at your exposed skin, sinking its fangs in deep, forcing a shiver up your spine that makes you tense and makes way for goosebumps to break out all across your skin, the hairs on your body standing on edge as you roughly rub at the areas in hopes that the friction will do its job properly in warming you up.
It does, if only momentarily, give you a small sliver of reprieve and the opportunity to bask in the warmth before it’s cruelly yanked away the very second you halt your movements, letting that frigid cold seep right back in and settle deep into your bones, comfortably making a home for itself there.
From the exterior, the bar hardly looks... appealing, should we say? The exterior reeks of piss, stomach acid, and sex—a combination of scents that makes you scrunch up your nose in disgust and discomfort—and the building itself is hardly any better, the paint chipping and cracking all over the place with the brick looking as if it’ll crumble with so much as a gust of wind.
So, with a deep, heavy breath, you push open the old, creaky wooden door and take a step inside, immediately being greeted with a rush of warmth and the smell of fresh food and liquor. Lively, half-drunken chatter fills the air from the bar’s patrons, with some groups seated along the bar and others at tables scattered across the hardwood floor; nearly everyone within the establishment has one or more people to be paired with, leaving nobody alone.
The people, though, aren't exactly who you expected to see. When your group of close friends initially invited you to come out with them for a night of drinking near one of their flats, far off along the outskirts of the bustling city, you really had no reason to refuse the extended offer. After all, you hadn’t seen some of them in months, so this would be the perfect opportunity to catch up, no?
Well, it is. But nobody thought to tell you that you’d be walking right into a military bar.
Apparently, according to one of your friends, there’s a base just a few kilometers down the road, and, given that this is the closet bar in the vicinity of it, it’s where every active-duty soldier and veteran comes. They make up ninety percent of the bar’s patrons, too, so you and your friends are some of the few groups that aren’t associated with the military. Well… yet.
And not that there’s any issue with it being a military bar, of course! It’s just that… you aren’t exactly accustomed to dealing with such… bold personalities.
While your friend group does, in fact, consist of a few colorful characters and then some, the other patrons at the bar are a little too much for your taste. You’re used to your friends making crude jokes, being loud and rowdy, and playfully flirting with you and everyone else, but when it comes to others? You aren’t exactly prepared.
You and your friends are sat around a large wooden table near the very center of the bar, a number of large splits cracking down the length of it, with one of the legs being propped up by a book due to it not being long enough to reach the floor. At least the chairs are somewhat comfortable, even if they’re nothing more than metal barstools with a bit of cushion on them.
The alcohol is fairly cheap, to everyone’s delight, especially when it’s actually good. You’d think, with the state that the bar’s interior and exterior are in, that the drinks and food would be equally as abhorrent with mold or bugs or something disgusting, but no! The food is cooked through and seasoned well, and the drinks are as they should be. So, none of you can really complain when the main attraction is enjoyable.
You all talk about anything and everything: who is sleeping with whom, what co-worker or boss got exposed for something or other, whatever celebrity drama is happening at the moment, what show or movie someone saw recently that you just have to watch. It’s a mixture of small talk and deep discussion, with the conversation flowing smoothly as everyone enjoys their food, drinks, and the company that surrounds them.
Until the first soldier approaches.
He’s young, no older than twenty-two—even that might be a bit of a stretch—dressed fully in uniform, the green camo pants he wears tucked neatly into a pair of black boots with a fitted shirt clinging tightly to his skin, emphasizing his physique. He isn’t bad-looking per se, but he definitely isn’t your type.
He walks over by himself with a smug, self-assured grin plastered on his face as he approaches one of your friends who sits directly across from you, giving you a perfect view and earful of the interaction as you take a sip of your liquor, watching as he puts his hand on the back of her chair, speaking in a hushed whisper.
“Hey there, pretty girl. You look bored over ‘ere with all of y’r friends. I could make y’r night more interestin’, y’know. You interested?”
Okay. Wow. Starting off strong.
And before you even know it, she’s giving a sheepish smile to the rest of you, apologizing and excusing herself from the table as she grabs her coat and purse from the back of her chair, waving you and everyone off before turning and hurriedly trailing behind the man like a lost puppy and out towards the car lot outside, no doubt ready and willing to get in some action of her own before the night is through.
And that’s just the beginning. After another half hour, all of your friends have either grabbed their things and said their goodbyes to go home with the soldier of their choice for the night, or they left to the bathroom or back alley, only to come back with a limp to their gait, bruised lips, marks, tousled hair, and fucked-out eyes. And if it’s the latter, it only takes them a few minutes before they leave, just like their formers.
It’s not like you haven’t had your fair share of men and women alike trying to court you, either. In fact, there have been four different people who have come up to you throughout the night and have tried their hand at seducing you, whether it be shitty pick-up lines that they use or bold flirtatious remarks, some even trying to trail an eager hand across your shoulder or back as a means to further entice you.
But you haven’t failed to turn each and every single one of them down, polite as you may try to be. It’s for two separate reasons, you deduce. One is that the people who are coming up to you aren’t exactly your type, be it in terms of the way that they look or their personality, while the other reason is… slightly more straightforward.
You’re a virgin.
So, to you, it’s no surprise that you’re adamant on turning down everyone that comes up to you to try and, for lack of better wording, try to get into your pants. Your other friends who have already been approached and taken up their offers for a good fuck, be it bent over the bathroom sink, pressed up against the brick wall in the alley outside, or going home to enjoy that ecstasy in a bed, intend to spend their nights well.
They’ll be having more of a “good night” than you will, even though they’ve all wished you well with some variation of that phrase.
So, here you sit at an empty table, nursing your drink with a soft sigh, bored out of your mind as you trail your pointer finger around the rim of the glassware in a slow, calculated manner. You can’t help but feel a bit left out. Again, not as if you haven’t already been given a multitude of chances and offers that you could have taken up hours ago, but none of them—to you, at least—seem to be someone worthy of taking something as intimate as your virginity away from you.
To hold it in their palms like a trophy or medal to display with smug, overzealous pride. To flaunt, to brag about, and then to ultimately forget, because to them, your virginity doesn’t matter. It’s something that can boost their ego for a momentary period of time before shrugging off and away because it didn’t matter and wasn’t important.
So, no, you decide. None of the overconfident, liquid courage-fueled bastards are worthy of taking your virginity away from you. Thus, you only have yourself to blame for your “lack of action," so you can’t complain about it any longer when you’ve dug in your heels and chosen to stick firmly by your decision, now can you?
That is, until a particular Russian man donning aviators and a brown leather flight jacket downs his shot in one go and stands, beginning to take slow, confident strides in your direction from his previous seat positioned at a small table in the far back corner of the bar from behind you, with four men urging him on with a few whistles and cheers.
Not that he has any need for encouragement or prayers, of course.
You don’t even notice him as he approaches, because you’d assume with a man of his size and stature that you’d at the very least be able to hear his footsteps, but no. He’s completely silent until he’s right behind you, one hand holding onto the back of your chair in a casual manner while the other splays out right beside your drink as he leans into it, both next to you and behind you all at once.
You can feel his hot, vodka-soaked breath fall heavy against the exposed skin of your spine even when his mouth isn’t anywhere near you yet, still maintaining some level of control over himself and his actions. You’re unable to see the way he catches his bottom lip between his teeth as he grins, thoroughly amused with the way a shiver crawls up your spine, right to where you had felt the ghost of his breath just moments ago.
That, and the flames of desire that flare up and burn behind his eyes.
“I cannot help but notice that your friends left you behind all by yourself. So cruel to do that to someone like yourself.”
You can only assume that sarcasm laces his tone with the way he puts emphasis on certain words or the way he speaks with a specific lilt, but that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. He means every word he says, so, if anything, it’s pure and unbridled amusement and honesty that lace his words and the way that he speaks.
Because he does think that it’s cruel that all of your friends have left you alone with nothing more than a quick, uncaring, departing word or phrase before they rush out to follow behind and fuck some other mindless soldier who, more than likely, has already had their fair share of the bar’s civilian patrons. Your friends don’t mean anything special to those soldiers, as unfortunate as it is, but that fact in and of itself is what separates him from those men.
Even if, yes, he’s in just as much of a desperate need to get off as they are.
You have to fight against the urge to roll your eyes at his words, your pointer finger continuing to drag lazily along the rim of your glass as you work to ignore him, not exactly up for trying to craft another excuse as a means to reject whatever proposal of having sex you assume he’s come up with, content with picking up your drink and finishing it off with a slow, steady breath, letting the liquor burn down your throat with indifference.
But, unfortunately for you, that only furthers his intrigue. So, with a smirk that slowly begins to spread out wider across his lips, even if you still don’t turn to see it, he chooses to take his shot and make a move. Or, rather and more accurately put, he makes an executive decision that he won’t allow you to refuse.
“Let me buy you a drink, да? Keep you company.”
And, just as stated, he doesn’t allow you to refuse him or turn down his offer like you had done with the others, already waving and making a few hand gestures at one of the servers, calling out to them for a refill of whatever you had been drinking and to place whatever your tab had been under his card, pulling out an empty chair, and taking his place in the seat beside you, getting to see that smug smirk for yourself for the first time.
And now your in it.
He’s… surprisingly pleasant to be around, you come to find out as you begrudgingly begin to converse with him. At first, you still try to ignore him, not even touching the new drink as it’s set in front of you just yet, keeping your eyes trained on and tracing the different rings in the wood table, but, in coming to the conclusion that he isn’t going to leave you alone, you start talking.
The conversation is forced when it begins, consisting of quick responses from you that lack any emotion or indication that you want to keep speaking. But he’s patient, and he waits, and he shifts his approach to asking questions that you can’t just give one to two word responses to, forcing the conversation into something of value. And only then does it begin to flow, slowly blending into something smoother—something that you can enjoy.
You learn his name, Nikolai, tasting it on your tongue with a sip of your drink, letting the flavors and tastes seep into your palette and glide down your throat until you feel it pool and fester in the depths of your stomach. The way you say his name makes his own cheshire-esque grin wifey further, his eyes crinkling with a flicker of undeniable mischief. It’s dangerous, but it draws you in just like a siren to a sailor.
He keeps the conversation civil at first, not wanting to scare you off just yet when he’s barely captured your attention, asking a few generic questions and molding them into something of substance, giving a few answers of his own and straying away from keeping them vague, trying to be as specific as he can afford to allow as a means to keep your attention drawn in on him.
But after you finish your drink and he moves to order you another without question, he gets bolder.
Brushes of his fingers against your bare skin, remarks and words heavy with innuendo, heavy heated breaths that fan across the space between you both, and purrs that make your head spin in the best ways possible. It’s equally overwhelming as it is underwhelming. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s doing it better than you could have ever anticipated, drawing you in like a moth to a flame.
You’re in over your head before you can even comprehend what’s happening.
“Come on, лапушка … let me give you a better night than your friends could ever even dream of having.”
His voice is heavy, as is his accent, his body turned to look at you with his face no more than a few centimeters away from your own, one of his hands busied with trailing his fingertips lazily up and down the exposed skin of your forearm, barely even touching it at all, while the other rests atop your thigh, the warmth from his skin seeping through the fabric of your pants as his thumb brushes back and forth in a methodic motion.
Nikolai’s staring down at you with these half-lidded eyes that you can barely even make out through his dark aviators, his breathing coming out in slow, shallow exhales, weighing heavy in his chest as he drags his tongue across his bottom lip, gently cocking his head to the side with that same smug look that hasn’t left his face or lips since he first started to speak with you, danger dancing behind his eyes.
A warning and a question wrapped into one, questioning if you’re ready for a man like him.
You look up at him, searching for as much as a flicker of that same cocktail of overzealousness and egotism that you so easily caught in every other person’s eyes as they presented you with a similar offer, seeing you as nothing more than a warm body to accompany and please them for the evening. To be able to decline him, turn down his offer, and go home for the night… to be able to forget about him and this before you let it get out of hand.
But you can’t find it. He wants you, yes, that much you can tell, but not in the same way that they did.
“Okay. Yeah… sure. Yes.”
You tell him, stumbling over your words messily, but he doesn’t seem to care about it in the slightest. That smile of his edges with danger as he effortlessly moves his hand, grasping onto his aviators, taking them off and hooking them onto his shirt, his other hand leaving your thigh as he moves you in front of him, moving his hand to the small of your back to guide you around the bar towards one of the bathrooms near the back.
He stands tall from behind you, confidence radiating from his very being as he casually walks, uncaring of all the eyes that stare down at the two of you from all across the establishment as the watch, knowing full and well exactly what’s about to transpire, even if you don’t. His friends, the four, sat at the table just a few feet away from the bathroom door, sending him sly smiles and nods of approval.
One of them, a bearded man wearing a bucket hat, holds up his wrist and taps at his watch, sending Nikolai a knowing look even as he grins just like the rest. You don’t exactly know what it means, but it doesn’t seem to phase the Russian in the slightest, rolling his eyes as he opens up the bathroom door, the hinges creaking loudly as it arches open, ushering you inside as he follows suit, letting it close with a groan, the lock clicking.
He’s on you in a second.
He turns you around, pressing you back roughly against the door as he crowds you against it, one of his knees wedging itself in between your thighs, shifting them apart, and one of his forearms moving to lie against the door above your head so that he can lean over and look down on you, giving you a crystal clear idea of how much bigger he truly is than you, bucking his knee up against your cunt.
A moan threatens to spill past your lips at the action, eyelids fluttering as the noise bubbles up… but he’s quick to catch it. Before it can boil over, Nikolai presses a bruising kiss to your lips, groaning into it, the sound rumbling like an earthquake from deep within his chest. A long, drawn-out “fuck” passes through his lips as he pulls away momentarily, trying desperately to catch his breath, his actions filled with lust.
His eyebrows knit together, and he bucks up his knee once more as he looks down at you, watching and relishing in the way your lips part and allowing for another sweet moan to drip past your lips, breathing stuttering, catching in your throat as he brings one of his big hands up to hold at your hip, urging you to grind against his knee, a high-pitched keen from you filling the empty space, occupied only by his heavy breaths.
“Look at you."
Nikolai mumbles out, almost mockingly, taking in the sight before him of your parted lips, your shoes just barely touching the floor as he supports you on his knee, guiding you to grind along the length of it, the half-liddedness of your eyes. The sight is intoxicating, one that he desperately wants to photograph, frame, and keep to himself for as long as time allows, because, God, you’re a vision.
Nikolai dives back in for another kiss, this one lasting far longer and being much heavier—nothing short of tongue and teeth—as he loses himself in the taste of you. You aren’t much better. If anything, you’re in so much worse of a state than he is right now. You can feel your own composure crumbling apart in his hands, held together only by the taste of his lips. You can’t even fight it—not that you’d even want to in the first place.
You bring your hands up, letting them glide across his shoulders, fingers splayed, taking in the expanse of them before they go up further, tangling into his hair. The sensation forces another groan out of him, the sound trickling down your throat without a single ounce of shame, freely showing to you just how deep his need and desperation are to have you run within his bones.
“Have to… have to have you… You understand, да? You’ll let me?”
Nikolai breathes out between kisses, unable to decide whether he wants to lose himself in the feeling of your lips against his and nothing more, or if he wants to map and memorize every part of the inside of your mouth with his tongue. It’s a tough decision to make, so he opts simply to alternate between the two. It’s the best he can get of both worlds, he decides.
And your mind is finally allowed the space it’s ached for to remind you of exactly what this entire situation will lead to.
He didn’t intend to bring you to the bathroom just to have a quick, hot and heavy make-out session with you, as nice as that would be. No! That’s not what you signed up for, dummy! The second you agreed to be led back here by him, you were giving him permission and consent to fuck you, and you know it!
“Imavirgin!”
The words come flowing out past your lips like water as you pull away from him, the back of your head falling back against the wooden door as you gasp desperately for air, breathing in quickly and out brokenly before you can even process what you’ve said, trying to regulate your breathing from the way he had taken the oxygen straight out of your lungs. And when it does catch up to what you’ve said, you feel your face burn white hot, completely flushed.
You’re looking at him with wide eyes, something akin to a deer in headlights, while he looks back at you, now in the process of catching his own breath, with nothing more than a slightly confused expression as he works to pick apart your hurried, panicked words. And when it dawns on him as to what you’ve said, his pupils blow wide just a fraction, minutely, and just barely noticeable.
He doesn’t look disgusted or weirded out by your words, to your surprise, having expected that exact response from him and being wildly confused when you can’t find an inkling of that expression on his face.
“That wasn’t what I asked, лапушка.”
Nikolai mumbles out to you, pressing his forehead against your own as he allows his breathing to slowly but surely level out, his dazed, lust-filled eyes boring into your own, fingers loosening gently around your hip as he watches you intently.
He doesn’t care that you’re a virgin. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest, and, if anything, it turns him on. But what he's saying now is that he wants you, but he’s asking at the same time if you’ll let him, allowing for that decision to lie completely within your control. He isn’t forcing himself upon you, still giving you the ability to say no and withdraw your consent before he pushes anything further, simply asking if you understand what he means and if you’ll let him.
So, now you’re faced with a decision.
Do you withdraw your consent and tell him that, no, you won’t let him go any further with this? Because, quite frankly, you aren’t ready. Not ready to have sex for the first time in your life, not ready to lose your virginity, and certainly not ready to give up such an intimate part of yourself to a man you only met less than an hour ago.
Or... do you take a leap of faith without sparing a single glance beforehand and tell him that, yes, you do understand what he means, very clearly comprehending it and recognizing what’s to come with the acceptance of his proposal, and that, yes, you will let him have you and your body? That you’ll let him do whatever he wants to you, to be the one to take your virginity from you… and maybe then some.
It’s an important decision for you to make, one whose answer determines whether or not you lose your last sense of innocence. And, for better or for worse, far beyond your better judgement, you don’t spend too much time weighing the pros and cons before making your decision.
“I… ah… I understand. And… yeah, yes. Please.”
Just like before, your answer comes out laced with hesitation and apprehension, both emotions undeniable, especially with the way your voice cracks and strains, leaving you to stumble and stutter over your words as you give him your answer with a shaky voice. Your hands are still tangled into his hair, albeit much looser now, but still present, the tremors that wrack through them gently tousling the dark strands.
And, after a moment, allowing his space to process what you said, Nikolai’s fingers resume their tight grip on your hip, the thick fingers bruising the skin, no doubt, even through the layers of your clothes. Never breaking eye contact with you, he pulls his head back, removing his forehead from its spot pressed against yours, his eyes shamelessly looking you up and down, his tongue gliding over the skin of his teeth.
“Умница.”
Nikolai mumbles out with praise, his voice barely louder than a whisper, though gruff and gravely beyond belief, a testament to his desire, moving his hand down for your hip to cup and grope at your ass through your pants, the other quickly following suit as he hoists you up, forcing you to wrap your legs around his hips so as not to fall. Even if he wouldn’t ever let that happen in the first place, of course.
With your legs wrapped so tightly around his hips, you can very easily feel the hardness of his cock, even through all of the layers of clothing that separate you. You feel your breath hitch and stutter as it comes out shakily, your eyes boring into his own with parted lips and an open mouth, so unaware of what he has in store for you.
Oh, sweetheart, he’s going to fucking ruin you.
Unlike before, his footsteps are heavy as they move against the tiled floor of the bathroom, the thuds filling the space between the two of you, mixed with your own shared heavy breaths as he moves to, rather unceremoniously, drop you onto the long sink that lines one of the walls. Your legs dangle over the edge of it, and your thighs spread apart so far that you can feel your pants straining to accommodate them and the burn of your thighs as he stands between them.
He brings you back in for another kiss, his body towering over your own as he forces you to lean back against the cold mirror behind you, a shiver crawling up the length of your spine as you moan into his mouth, earning a pleased groan from him, just like before. His hands move, hooking into the loops of your pants as he forces them down, not even requesting for you to lift up your ass to make it easier, doing all the work for himself.
Nikolai’s tongue glides along your bottom lip, teasing its way into your mouth. His teeth clink against your own, and the kiss is sloppy and messy in a way that makes you moan out, whining softly. They’re two sounds that he eagerly swallows from your lips and drinks in like wine. He roughly shoves your pants the rest of the way down, moving them around and off of one foot so they dangle off of the other, the leg dragging against the floor.
Pulling back, Nikolai chuckles darkly at the way you try to cling to him, gently and desperately tugging at his hair with a whimper, trying to urge him back down for another kiss. He clicks his tongue, tutting at you with disapproval, shaking his head as he does so, giving you a warning look that quickly makes you remove your hands from their position, letting them come to fist at his shirt, gripping onto it with desperation.
“Нет. None of that. You're so eager for something that you have never even had. You don’t know how to act. We have to fix that, да?”
It’s condescending that the way Nikolai speaks, mocking you and making fun of you for how desperate you are when he hasn’t even done anything of real substance yet—nothing more than a bit of making out and thigh grinding—has you acting out of line. Granted, you don’t really know where that line stands, given that you haven’t ever done this before, but he’s here to show you. To teach you and ingrain into you the role that you play beneath him.
Nikolai brings one of his hands up, cupping your chin and holding it tightly and firmly between his thumb and forefinger, the others pressed against the side of your throat, tilting it upwards as you strain your neck to keep up with the action. He inches his thumb up further, looking down at and watching you with narrowed eyes, cold and calculating as he presses them against your lips, feeling the way you exhale shakily out of your nose.
“Open.”
It’s not a request, as you can tell, so you don’t waste any time looking at him with confusion, simply parting your lips for him and opening your mouth, just as he’s requested. He doesn’t even give you a moment to fully comprehend what's happening as he pushes his thumb past your lips, presses the rough pad down onto your tongue, and hooks it behind your teeth as he pulls you closer to him.
Drool begins to pool inside your mouth as you look up at him with wide eyes, trying to speak, to whine, and to say something, but he tightens his grip in response, growling lowly. It’s your second warning.
“I thought you were a smart girl? Didn’t I say that? Умница, Да? Act like one.”
His other hand, the one currently positioned near your calf, not having moved since pulling your pants roughly down your legs, inches its way upwards, brushing against the exposed skin and leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Teasing, maybe, but it further ingrains his point into your head that, if you don’t start to behave and let him do the work, you won’t be getting any satisfaction or pleasure out of this.
He doesn’t care if this is your first time or not, and it’s not in a dismissive or cruel way. He’s simply treating you like he would any other person that he was going to have sex with, so it’s a mixture of equal rights and equal opportunity, you suppose. Whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing is… undetermined.
His palm presses against your thigh, fingers splayed as they continue to inch upward, branding your skin with the heat they exude, and, as much as you want to buck your thigh up into his palm and beg for him to rush and hurry up, you don’t. Because, lucky for you, that critical thinking skill is starting to work, the gears in your head are turning and allowing you the space to think. You have to be patient and good if you want what he can give you.
So, rather hesitantly, you wrap your lips around his thumb, gently gliding and swirling your tongue around his thumb, covering it in the slick, sticky saliva that pools in your mouth, looking up at him as you wait, playing that role of the smart girl that he wants you to be. Not rushing, not hurrying, and not begging.
And, oh, are you rewarded for it.
Nikolai lets out another deep and heavy "fuck," but this time it’s shaky and strained, the heat and movement of your tongue against his skin lighting up fireworks in his body that go straight down to his cock. His composure slips, if only momentarily, before he picks it right back up, catching his bottom lip between his teeth and biting down onto it roughly, shakily breathing as he watches you with half-lidded eyes and a twitching grin.
“There you go. Much better.”
Nikolai’s fingers brush against the fabric of your panties, his eyes breaking away from your face as he looks down and leans his body back slightly, watching his own actions as, with one finger, he moves them to the side, exposing your glistening cunt to his wanting eyes, pushing it until it touches your other thigh, using his fingers to spread out your folds, listening to the squelching sounds they make.
He gently presses his thumb to your entrance, not yet pushing inwards, simply moving it around the area with purpose, listening to the sounds that it makes—a perfect symphony, if you were to ask him. He drags the pad of it upwards just as slowly, letting it glide and trail over the length of your pussy until he reaches your clit, his eyes flickering up at you as he presses down against it, making slow, gentle circles around it, watching you.
Even with your mouth wrapped around his thumb, you let out the prettiest moan, muffled into a hum as your hips jerk upwards unintentionally at his actions. Your eyelids flutter, twitching and arching your back in a quick spasmed motion, and he drinks in the sight of it with greed, his breaths so hot and heavy as he watches.
You’re going to put him in an early grave, Nikolai thinks to himself. How is he going to survive when you’re so good and so eager for him? Letting him play with your pretty pussy like this, toying and playing with it as if the action were innocent in nature without arguing, whining, and begging for more?
He’s being so mean to you when it’s your first time. He should be treating you so sweetly and nicely, shouldn't he? He should’ve sunk his cock into you a while ago, broken you in, and given you the soft lovemaking you deserve to have. He should’ve made you cum already; feel you squeeze him and listen to you make more of those pretty sounds that he’s starting to crave like a drug.
But that isn’t the man Nikolai is. But, then again, he can still recognize and appreciate your actions. He can still praise you and give you something of substance before he lets himself take away your innocence and let his most perverse thoughts run wild.
Taking his thumb out of your mouth and watching the drool drip down from it, Nikolai places it into his own mouth, sucking your taste from it until it’s clean. Only then does he bring his middle and ring fingers to your lips. And now, you know exactly what to do without instruction, leaning forward and taking them into your mouth, gagging softly as you take them as far back as you can, your tongue drooling and licking all over them, wetting them thoroughly.
And this time when he removes them, he quickly moves on to shift them to your other set of lips, smearing the saliva all over your cunt, right near your entrance. He teases the tip of one of his fingers around it, pressing in gently and slowly, taking his sweet time. His fingers are so much thicker than your own; one of them is akin to the width of two of your own.
It doesn’t hurt, nor does it strain too much. It’s bearable—something you can handle. That is, until he works to ease the second finger in, letting you get used to the feeling of one of his fingers inside of you for only a few moments before pressing the second one in. And this time, instead of your breath simply catching in your throat, it’s as if the wind has been knocked out of you, leaving you gaping and gasping.
"O-oh, fuck, please."
You whisper out softly, your voice breaking into a whimper as your back fully arches against the mirror, your jaw slack as you moan out pathetically, closing it only to swallow the saliva in your mouth down harshly, making an audible gulp, before opening it once more, breathing out heavily with whimpers falling from your lips as he eases it in further. The burn from the stretch has you dizzy in the head—a mixture of pain from the sting of it and the pleasure of being filled so well.
Nikolai smiles slyly, pushing in all the way until his fingertip brushes against your cervix, cooing to you in a degrading manner as you cry out, your thighs instinctively squeezing together, trying to urge him away.
“What? Do you want me to stop?”
Nikolai muses with a smug grin spread out across his lips, taunting you with the way he spreads his fingers out into a v-shape. He struggles against the tightness of your cunt, feeling your walls gripping onto him like a vice, but not stopping either way. He’s pushing you to your limits, maybe even far beyond them at this point, but everything he’s doing is sending your mind into a blurry haze of pleasure.
So much as him mentioning stopping makes you want to sob.
“No! No, no no no, please no. Please don’t stop. Please.”
You beg him with your breathing bordering on hyperventilation from how quickly you’re inhaling and exhaling, with a tone raw with emotion and desperation, just as it was before, but the contexts feel so different this time. You spread your legs impossibly wider, that burn from before feeling like nothing in comparison to the way he’s stretching you out right now, his fingers knuckle deep into you.
Nikolai lets out an amused hum in response, slowly closing his fingers, feeling the way you squeeze him and force them back together, before spreading them out wide once more, his thumb creeping its way up towards your clit. You can barely notice it, too busy moaning for him and trying your best to keep your legs spread as much as your body tries to fight it. Unshed tears brim at your eyes, a testament to how good it all feels.
And when his thumb eventually makes its way to your clit, applying pressure as it moves in slow circles, you swear on everything you hold dear that you could cum then and there. Your eyes roll back into your head the second he presses his fingers back together and starts to curl them upwards, hitting that gummy spot that makes your body go rigid with tension.
“Good. I need to get you ready for me, after all. It will not do either of us any good if you cannot take all of me.”
If you had even half of your brain working, you might be able to formulate some kind of response to his words, but, with your mind so overwhelmed with pleasure, all you can do is squeeze his fingers tighter and moan like a whore. He continues his motions of pumping and curling his fingers inside of you, his thumb gradually picking up its pace, swirling tighter, quicker circles around your clit.
You’re mouth is perpetually open, and all the sounds that rise up deep within your throat are bubbling up without a single barrier to block them, your hands gripping tightly onto his shirt with no intention of letting go. Nikolai takes them all in with pride, every sound fueling his ego and his desires, only encouraging him further to quicken his motions. With the way your whines get higher in pitch and the way your body tenses, he can practically taste how close you are.
His free hand moves up your chest, slipping underneath the fabric of your shirt and hooking his thumb beneath your bra, pushing both upwards. He stuffs the fabric of your shirt into your mouth, muffling your moans, and, while it isn’t necessarily his intention to do so, he just has to get a look at your tits.
He can see how hard your nipples are and the way your tits jerk and bounce softly with every catch and stutter of your breath, and the sight drives him just as wild as the picture of his fingers stuffed inside of you with a mixture of your drool and slick smeared messily around your cunt and all over his knuckles.
Nikolai can’t stop himself as he leans forward, ensuring that you meet his eyes with a gentle tap of his fingers against your cheek when he wraps his lips around one of your nipples, his tongue swirling around it and his teeth gently grazing against it with a teasing bite. That sight and those sensations, combined with the way he’s been abusing your poor, puffy clit and pussy with his fingers, are all it takes to push you over the edge.
Your orgasm hits you with the force of a truck, completely knocking the wind out of you. Your breathing catches in your throat before stopping altogether for a moment, all of the blood in your body seemingly rushing to your ears. Your thighs snap shut, squeezing tightly around his wrist, and your eyes roll back into your head as far as they can go as you cum around his fingers, gushing and leaving them covered in your essence.
He lets you ride it out without saying a word, simply watching with a grin as you lose yourself in ecstasy—the pleasure that’s thrumming through your veins like nothing else you’ve ever experienced, and he knows it. The very sight of you like that has him gritting his teeth, growling out a low “yeah, there you go" against your chest as he detaches his mouth from your nipple, watching as you come undone, slowing down the movements of his fingers and thumb to let you ride out the waves of your orgasm undisturbed.
Your breathing stutters, that familiar glossy haze covering your eyes as you come back down to earth, blinking up dumbly at him as you regain your sense of awareness, opening and closing your jaw. All of that tension dissipates from your body with ease, fizzing out, leaving you practically boneless atop the bathroom sink, working on catching your breath as you try to remember how to think.
As you do that, looking down, Nikolai slowly pulls his fingers out of you, his eyes completely blown out as he watches the way your body tremors with aftershocks, shivering once he’s completely pulled out. Just like he knew they would be, his knuckles are covered in a ring on white, and the length of his fingers smeared with your cum and slick, soaked.
He wants to taste it; truly, he does, but that would just ruin what comes next.
Blinking, slowly coming out of the fog that the afterglow of your orgasm covers you in, you watch as Nikolai pulls back, bringing his hand away from your face as he brings it down towards his lower half, mumbling under his breath in Russian as he makes work of his belt singlehandedly, loosening it just enough that he can unbutton and unzip his pants. He doesn’t even shove them down his legs to kick them off fully, simply maneuvering the waistband of his boxers beneath his balls to free his cock.
And the sight of it sobers you up quickly.
How the fuck does he expect you to fit him inside of you?
“You’ll take it.”
He tells you without missing a beat, confident, practically reading your mind because he’s become well acquainted with that very look that crossed over your features when you saw it. It makes him chuckle, if anything, using his hand covered in your juices and smearing it all across his length, and you can’t help but watch greedily at the sight, understanding exactly why he’s so obsessed with sound with the way the smearing of your slick and cum fills the air between you.
Nikolai takes a step back, not yet bringing his eyes away from the sight of his cock as he mixes your juices with his own pre-cum, eyebrows knitting as he loses himself in his own thoughts. After a moment, he clicks his tongue. The sound immediately catches your attention, effortlessly making you perk up and shift your eyes from his cock to his face.
“Get down from there and turn around. I want you bent over this sink.”
Oh, fuck. This is really happening.
You nod at him, gulping down harshly as you shuffle your body towards the edge of the sink until your ass is to the very edge of it, pressing the tips of your toes against the floor as you hop off of it. Granted, you nearly collapse, not having anticipated the force of your orgasm to leave you incapable of standing on your own, but, thankfully, your tight grip on the rim keeps you standing.
Nikolai lets out a huff of amusement at the sight, making no move to assist you as you awkwardly turn yourself around while still holding onto the edge, legs wobbling and shaking as you stand in front of the sink. Now, with the change in position, you can truly see just how fucked-out you look in the mirror, just like your friends had been once before on the chance that you saw them before they left tonight.
Your hair’s a mess, strands stringing out in every direction, fuzzy with static, and your lips are completely swollen and bruised from how hard Nikolai kissed you. Drool dribbles past the side of your mouth and down your chin, eyes red from unshed tears, pupils blown out and darker than you ever would have imagined they would be. You look like an entirely different person in some ways, but in others, you look exactly the same.
But Nikolai doesn’t exactly have time for you to admire yourself in the mirror, so, with a grumble, he takes a step forward, moving his hand to your upper back, seemingly sweet and intimate with his actions, before roughly pressing you down against the sink, your nipples coming into contact with the cold surface of it, making you moan out and shiver. With his free hand, he pulls your panties down to your thighs, ensuring they won’t be in the way or an issue, before moving his hand back to hold onto his cock.
“You can admire yourself when you’re wrapped around me, лапушка. I gave you a command, so… I expect you to listen to it. Поняла?”
He kicks your feet further apart with his boots, gliding his hand down the expanse of your back and moving your shirt up the slightest bit so he can admire your ass. He taps his cock against the curve of your ass, obsessed with the wet sound it makes, letting out a deep, gutteral groan as he trails his tip along it lazily, tilting his head to the side. His thumb gently caresses the skin, rubbing up and down in a small area before suddenly removing it, only to bring it down with a harsh smack against it.
The sensation makes you lurch forward, yelping out loudly, completely caught off guard, not having expected it in the slightest. As much as you want to say that you don’t like it… the way that your cunt clenches around nothing in anticipation combined with the breathless moan you let out is undeniable. It’s an easy indication of your desires and how much you truly enjoy the sting it leaves behind on your ass.
“I said поняла?”
Nikolai growls out, breath fanning along your neck as you hear his voice right next to your ear, his hand pressing down into your lower back to support himself as he lines himself up with your entrance, bringing his tip to glide up and down through your folds, the squelching sound it makes causing you both to shutter in anticipation. You let out a pitiful whine at the feeling, one that earns you another harsh smack against your other cheek, forcing tears to your eyes.
“I don’t know Rus-”
He doesn’t even let you finish your words before he’s plunging his cock into you, pressing through your entrance and bottoming out in one swift thrust, enveloping himself in your soaked heat.
“Ебена мать!”
Nikolai curses out, muffling himself as he bites down hard enough on his bottom lip to taste blood. The squeeze of your tight pussy around him is enough to make him feel lightheaded and dizzy, gasping as he takes in a shuttering breath and pressing his forehead between your shoulderblades as he pants.
He fills you up completely with his cock, stretching your already sore cunt far past its limits as his tip presses against your cervix. Your eyes are forced to screw shut tightly as you try to grasp onto anything, but, alas, the countertop that spreads out along the edge of the sink is completely smooth, leaving you helpless.
You dig your fingers into your palms as a solution, your knuckles turning white as you press your forehead against the cool surface, trying desperately to ground yourself as a means to combat the stinging pain that comes with the stretch. The sensation is overwhelming, with all of your nerves feeling as if they’ve been lit ablaze.
It makes you want to writhe—to wriggle yourself out of his hold and scramble away from just how much it aches and burns. But, as you wait, your breath coming out in strained, stuttered breaths, you realize that he isn’t moving whatsoever. He keeps himself buried inside of you, completely still, his chest pressed against your back, as he breathes in with considerable effort and breathes out with just as much strain.
So, as the both of you lay there waiting for the pain to subside, you’re able to focus on and enjoy the feeling and be completely and utterly full. When Nikolai had his fingers inside of you earlier, you thought that that sensation was the most full you were going to feel. But, with the way that his cock leaves no extra space inside of you, filling you to the brim in a way where you can feel him bulging out against your tummy, you realize how enjoyable the sensation is.
It’s intimate and almost comforting, in a way, to have someone fill you up completely.
So, as you lie there, focusing on that sensation, you can feel that initial discomfort and overwhelmingness dissipate, leaving you solely with that fullness. It feels good, you come to find out, much better than anything you’ve ever felt before, and all you can think about is how much better you know that Nikolai can make it. So, you choose to gently press your ass back into him, taking him in impossibly deeper and giving him the subtle indication that you’re ready.
You feel him suck in a sharp breath that fands out against your skin. In a slow, fluid motion, he draws his hips back, pulling his cock out far enough that only the tip of it is left inside of you, before giving a gentle thrust to his hips and plunging himself back into you. The two of you moan out simultaneously, the sound he makes being more of a groan in nature and yours more of a whine, feeling the way he moves his hand to hold at your waist.
“Nik…”
You whine out to him, your voice cracking into breathlessness as you feel him thrust slowly in and out of, the desire to beg for more threatening to pass through your lips, but the harsh squeeze he gives to either of your hips shuts you up instantly, listening to the way he strains to breathe and speak, rolling his hips with each thrust, ensuring he can get as deep inside of you as he can, his tip brushing against your cervix each time without fail.
Nikolai lets out a particularly heavy breath, grunting as he snaps his hips with a bit more force into you. Steadily, he begins to pick up speed with each in and out of his cock, much to your delight, losing himself in the wet, squishy noises it makes with the motion.
“I am going to fucking ruin you. Mold you to my cock so that nobody will ever be able to make you feel as good as I do.”
He mumbles it out, primarily to himself, even though you can clearly hear it, standing up and leaning back slightly. He lazily turns his head to the side, eyes focused on the sight of his cock disappearing and reappearing with each thrust he makes, trailing up the length of your back and looking into the mirror, getting to witness it from a different perspective. The vision makes his cock twitch inside of you, forcing another groan out of him.
Taking one of his hands away from your hip, Nikolai reaches it upwards, finding the base of your neck, fingers splaying out as they cup the back of your head, before reaching forwards, tangling themselves into the strands of your hair, and pulling. The motion forces your back to arch, your head lifting away from the expanse of the sink, your eyes boring into… your own, the mirror giving you a perfect view of yourself.
Jaw slack, drool dripping past your lips, tongue out, eyes blown wide, hair a mess of strands, tits out, bent over with the prettiest sounds freely falling from your lips as you get fucked from behind in a shitty bar bathroom by a man you’ve barely met an hour ago. Nikolai takes in the same scene, his eyes watching yours as you focus on yourself, grunting out with each thrust, shamelessly making noise to properly translate just how much he’s enjoying this.
“But you would like that, да? To be unable to enjoy anyone else fucking you because I’m the one who took you first.”
Another slap to your ass leaves you reeling, your eyes rolling back into your head as he thrusts himself in deep, snapping his hips with a roughness that forces the air out of your lungs before you can even take in another breath. You feel him readjust his grip on your hair, forcing your back to arch even further as he growls, bouncing you along the length of his cock as he fucks into you with vigor.
The coil that resides in your lower stomach begins to slowly but surely tighten with each thrust, accompanied by your own pathetic moaning, whining, and keening—those beautiful tears falling down the length of your face without anything to hold them back. Your eyes glisten, flickering away from your own expression as you opt to watch his own, seeing the way he bites onto his bottom lip to hold back his moans and whines, even as he fails to do so without any resistance.
“Such a desperate whore for my cock, aren’t you? It is amusing how you’ve never had sex yet act like a slut.”
Nikolai coos out cruelly, emphasizing his words with a particular harsh thrust that has you drooling, letting his own hand grip at your waist as he pulls you back into each thrust, ensuring he bottoms out each and every time without fail. The obscene sound of his balls slapping against your soaked, sticky cunt fills the air. You can feel his tip slam against that spongey spot on your inner walls—the one that makes your toes curl and leaves you feeling boneless—and when he hears the sound you make, he’s relentless in focusing all of his attention right there.
God, it makes you see stars. You feel so unbelievably full in a way you’ve never felt before, each thrust of his thick, fat cock ripping the air from your lungs, leaving you sweaty and breathless. It’s overwhelming, yet in a way that makes you never want it to stop.
Drool drips onto the counter from your tongue, hanging off in stringy globs, flicking back and forth with each thrust. You can feel yourself getting close, your walls closing in on him with a grip that leaves him groaning and growling, completely pussydrunk off of you as his eyes catch on to all of the different telltale signs he’s coming to learn from you.
The way your eyelids twitch when your eyes roll back, the way your whole body tenses up with anticipation, and the way your noises get so much higher pitched
He’s never letting you go after this, he decides. Nobody is going to get to have you once he’s done with you—once he’s claimed you. He was your first, and he’d be damned if he let anyone other than himself be your second, your third, and so on and so forth.
“Come on, красивая вещь. Cum on my cock. You can do it.”
Nikolai growls out, his fingers bruising against the flesh of your waist as he holds on to tightly, as if you’d slip through his fingers if he were to loosen it, if only by a fraction. And you’ve learned from your lesson before that, being a smart girl and knowing to do what he says when he says it, so your body instinctively reacts to his command. Blinding, white-hot pleasure courses through your veins, ever nerve ending in your body, feeling like it’s on fire when you gush around him. You feel your entire body go rigid with tension,your, heart stopping for a moment, unable to breathe or see from just how hard you cum.
Oh, you feel like jelly. If you thought you were boneless before, the way his grip on your hair is the only thing keeping you up right now really shows you what “bonelessness” feels like.
Your entire body convulses, spasming and twitching and jerking you as you fight the overstimulation of him still ruthlessly pounding into your pussy, whining and keening as you babble out incoherently at him, everything making you so dizzy with pleasure. Nikolai himself isn’t that much farther behind you, the squeeze of your pussy bringing him teetering over the edge, barely able to pull out in time with a strained grunt of your name as hot, thick cum spurts from his twitching cock.
Ropes of it leak from his cock, painting pretty white lines against your ass as he groans out gutturally, leaning his head back as he basks in his own pleasure. He pants out heavy, each breath strained with effort as he blinks, chest heaving as he struggles to regain control over his own breathing, letting his eyes drop back down to admire the scene before him. There’s this dazed, lopsided smile that’s spread out across your lips, your eyes glazed over with ecstasy, just like before, but the difference in seeing your fucked-out face cockdrunk off of him. Oh, that just makes it all the better.
He blinks a few times, his jaw slack as he swallows down his own saliva and pants, his hand moving to smear his cum messily along your ass, rubbing it into your skin as if it were lotion. He knows it’ll stick to his own clothes if he does, but he can’t help himself nor care as he leans himself against you, bending over you, allowing himself to rest his forehead between your shoulder blades as his body comes down from such an intense high.
Seeing you like this, having you like this… it’s something he doubts he could ever leave.
His breaths come into sync with your own; the steady breathing, lungs filling with air, and breathing out, expelling all of that air, is an action that the both of you focus on as one, uncaring about anything else but this moment. You feel him mumble something against your back, unable to make it out through the haze of your afterglow, unable to hear all the whispers of praise he allocates to you, pressing gentle kisses against your shirt.
The moment is undeniably intimate, something you may not suspect from him, especially given the way that he treated you. But it makes sense, the way he has this imposing and overwhelmingly dominating persona that he leans on, yet can be equally caring and loving when the situation requires it. It’s a delicate balance that he maintains, further proving the extents of his own control, both over his partners and himself, and you can’t help but appreciate and admire it.
But unfortunately, the calm atmosphere that begins to settle between the two of you is so rudely interrupted by the sound of multiple harsh, sharp poundings against the door to the bathroom. Even though the door remains locked, which, thank God, Nikolai had done, the handle still gets jiggled with haste. Muffled, barely audible conversation can be heard happening from beyond the door, but it doesn’t seem like, according to your actions, that each of you cares all that much.
“Nikolai! Hurry up in there. If you don’t come out soon, we’re taking your truck back and leaving you here.”
A gruff, deep Scouse accent barks out, muffled only by the barrier of the wooden bathroom door that continues to shake from the sheer force of the pounding the knocks have been making against it. Nikolai groans out with a mixture of frustration and annoyance against the fabric of your shirt, still working to catch his breath as his pants begin to slow down, the heat of them seeping through the fabric and sticking to your skin.
“Maybe I should let him…”
He mumbles out for only you to hear, his palm gently rubbing up and down the curve of your ass, working to soothe that ache that lingers from his harsh, sharp smacks. He presses a gentle kiss between your shoulder blades, trailing his lips upwards as he follows your spine and the curve of your neck, leading him to make his way to press them along the edge of your jawline. The sensation makes you let out a shuttering breath, which is uneven and shaky in nature.
The afterglow of your orgasm still lingers, mixing in with the dull ache left behind by the rough way he treated your cunt, your mind hazy as it swirls with pleasure, focusing on those sensations and nothing else, not even his words. You let out a soft hum in response, still fucked out and dumb without a single thought occupying the space in your head, not even knowing what it is exactly that you’re acknowledging. It makes him chuckle.
“Good first time; I take it, then?”
He muses smugly, knowing full well that you won’t be able to give him a proper answer. But, with the look that shines behind your eyes and the state that he’s left you in, he doesn’t even have to ask that question to know the answer to it.
So, with a heavy and reluctant sigh, pressing one last kiss to your jawline, he pulls himself back. Gently, he moves to rest your head back down against the sink, turning his gaze downward as he tucks his softening cock back into his boxers. He pulls back up his pants, re-buttoning and zipping them, and fastening his belt through the loops. He composes himself after doing so, smoothing down his clothes and checking himself in the mirror.
Well, as composed as a man who just fucked can, you guess.
Then he moves on to you. He presses gently kisses along your exposed skin, helping your boneless form readjust your bra and pull down your shirt, pulling back up your panties and pants, ensuring they’re all situated as he gives you a once-over from behind, pulling you against him as he checks you out in the mirror in front of you. A kiss is pressed to the side of your neck as he looks at you in the mirror, his eyes still half-lidded and a smirk adorning his lips.
“Come on, лапушка. Focus. It will be hard to walk if your legs don’t work, да?”
He teases lightheartedly, helping bring you back to reality as he helps you stand, your knees buckling instantly, but he never lets go of you once, remaining patient as the pins and needles slowly but surely dissipate, and you’re able to stand on your own, finally able to string a sentence together and cultivate coherent thoughts Still leaning into him, even if you don’t need his support anymore, you let out a soft whine laced with disapproval.
He hums, wordlessly acknowledging you.
"I don't want you to go."
You complain, drawing out the last syllable as you voice out your thoughts to him, not at all ready to depart and go back by yourself. To, quite possibly and realistically, never see him again once he leaves. You aren’t ready for that, as selfish as it might be to admit. He chuckles at your words, not out of malice but out of loving amusement, gently turning you around so that you’re facing him, tilting your head up with one of his fingers curled under your chin.
“Well… I suppose my comrades can find their own way home, don’t you think? They’re capable enough. You, however…”
He trails off with a chuckle, wordlessly acknowledging your state with raised eyebrows and a shit-eating grin, to which you can only whine out into the air between you both, clearly not amused as he is by his words. But once you’re actually able to register what he means by that, you look up at him with parted lips, that dumb expression still on your face, but now it’s more endearing than anything.
He leans forward, the scruff of his facial hair scratching gently against your skin as he presses a kiss to your forehead, letting his lips linger around the area for a few moments before ultimately pulling back.
“Let me take you home. You might have lost your virginity, but… that was only in one position. I think it’s only fair I help you lose it in all of them, don’t you think?”
It’s cocky and overwhelmingly confident—exactly what made you turn down the others who had tried their luck convincing you to have sex with them earlier in the night—but, coming from Nikolai, it’s a trait of his that has you hooked. Be it good or bad, you can’t find any part of yourself that’s inclined to refuse his open offer. So, with a dopey, lopsided smile that spreads out across your lips, you nod, accepting.
summary: working at a bookstore can get pretty boring—until johnny knoxville walks in and suddenly you can’t stop looking at him. and maybe, just maybe, he can’t stop looking at you either.
warnings: SMUT, age gap (reader is in her 20s and johnny is in his late 40s), virginity loss, p in v, dirty talk, kinda really fluffy, oral f!recieving, fingering, let me know if i missed any!
Working at a bookstore wasn’t usually thrilling.
Until Johnny Knoxville walked in.
You knew he was coming, obviously—the staff had spent a week prepping for the Q&A and signing event tied to the release of his memoir, Broken, Bruised, and Loving It. But no amount of emails or floor plans or advance copies could prepare you for the real thing: 6 feet of chaos, swagger, and bruised-up charisma in a denim jacket and chipped sunglasses.
He entered like he owned the joint, and maybe in a way he did—half the crowd here tonight was buzzing for him. You watched from the staff counter, silently reciting all the ways you were not going to lose your cool. You weren’t going to fangirl. You weren’t going to blush. You definitely weren’t going to tell him that you used to rewind the “rocket sled” scene like it was your favorite film.
Then he looked right at you.
“Hey,” he called out, pointing from across the room like he recognized you from a dream or a mugshot. “You look like you’ve seen someone fly into a tree before.”
You froze, halfway between setting out bookmarks and forgetting how to breathe. “I, uh… maybe once or twice.”
He smirked and kept walking, but your hands shook for five minutes after.
⸻
The Q&A was chaos in a can. Knoxville told stories like a drunk uncle on a roll—animated, inappropriate, wildly entertaining. He balanced on the edge of a display table, flirted with elderly fans, and mimed multiple stunts with what looked like real trauma in his eyes. The crowd was in love.
So were you, kind of.
Not in the poster-on-your-wall way you’d been in high school. This was worse. This was adult-level infatuation—the kind that came with deeper tension, heavier curiosity, and the unbearable awareness of his mouth when he licked his lips after laughing.
And worse? He kept glancing at you.
Not just once. Repeatedly. Like you were the only calm thing in the whole damn room and he couldn’t stop circling back to it.
⸻
After the signing ended and most people had filtered out, Knoxville lingered behind, sipping from a bottle of water and flipping through a poetry book someone had gifted him.
“Hey,” he said again, sidling up to the register where you were half-cleaning, half-hiding. “You a fan or just immune to weirdness by now?”
You looked up, pulse spiking. “I grew up on your stuff. The old DVDs. The MTV reruns. I watched Jackass 3D in the theater like three times.”
He grinned. “So you’re telling me I was part of your sexual awakening?”
You nearly dropped the pen in your hand. “I—no—what? That’s not—”
“I’m just messin’ with you.” He leaned on the counter, smile wicked but eyes sincere. “Mostly.”
You swallowed. “You want me to get someone to box up the extra copies for you?”
“Nah. I came over to talk to you.”
That pulled your gaze up.
“You’ve been watching me all night,” he said easily, no accusation, just fact. “But not like the others. You weren’t waiting for a selfie. You weren’t screaming. You were just… there. Calm. Cool. Smart.”
You gave a small, breathless laugh. “You got all that from how I arranged a stack of books?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had enough concussions to develop weird instincts.”
A beat passed. You watched each other.
Then he asked, gently, “You seeing anyone?”
You blinked. “What?”
“I’m asking if it’d be wildly inappropriate to ask you out while I’m technically on a book tour.”
Your heart thudded. “Not inappropriate. Just… unexpected.”
He leaned in, voice a little lower. “You’ve got this whole… sweet and dangerous vibe. Like you’d blush if I said something filthy but you’d remember it word for word.”
You were absolutely blushing.
He grinned. “See?”
You hesitated, then blurted, “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Worked in a bookstore?” he teased.
“No.” Your voice was soft now. “Like… this. The flirting. The being noticed. The maybe saying yes.”
His teasing eased off instantly. “Shit. You serious?”
You nodded.
He straightened, less wolfish now, more curious. “Okay. Alright. So you’ve been flying under the radar and I’m your first close call?”
Something in his voice made the hair on your arms rise. You felt exposed but not unsafe. Nervous, but not panicked.
“I’m not asking for anything,” he added. “Not tonight. Not unless you want it. I just… don’t meet people like you often.”
You exhaled slowly. “Maybe you should ask.”
His eyes lit up.
“Would you,” he said carefully, “like to grab a drink with me? Somewhere quiet. Somewhere you can still say no to anything you want, but maybe… maybe yes, too?”
Your lips parted, a smile creeping in despite the racing in your chest.
“Yeah,” you whispered. “I think I would.”
⸻
Johnny picked the dive bar like he’d been born in it.
It was tucked three blocks down from the bookstore, half-lit and humming with the low murmur of locals nursing drinks. No cameras. No screaming fans. Just a jukebox, a dartboard, and a worn booth in the back that looked like it had survived a few bad decisions.
You slid into the seat across from him, pulse still high.
“Alright,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. “Now that we’re off the clock, you can tell me what it’s like working at a bookstore full of dusty hardbacks and horny college kids.”
You laughed. “Mostly quiet. A little chaotic during finals. Occasionally I have to stop someone from reading smut aloud in the corner.”
His eyes lit up. “Wait—people do that?”
“More than you’d think.”
“I knew bookstores were kinky,” he said, grinning wide. “Something about all those dog-eared pages and unspoken tension.”
You sipped your drink, raising a brow. “Is that your professional analysis?”
“Babe, I’ve been launched into the air in a porta-potty. I majored in unspoken tension.”
You smiled, but your fingers were still trembling slightly around your glass. It wasn’t nerves exactly—it was that awful, wonderful feeling of anticipation. Like your body already knew something your mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
Johnny noticed.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low, all the playfulness gone soft around the edges.
You nodded. “Yeah. Just… processing.”
“Tell me what’s in your head. I got time.”
You paused. “I guess I’m trying to figure out why you’re even interested in me. You’re—you know—you. And I’m just… the girl who alphabetizes Bukowski collections and secretly watches your movies on sick days.”
He leaned in, folding his arms on the table, eyes steady on yours.
“I’ve had a lot of girls scream for me,” he said. “A lot of parties. A lot of noise. It’s easy to get lost in that. But you—” he tilted his head—“you looked at me like I was real. Not just a dude in a shopping cart with fireworks taped to his ass.”
You bit your lip, heartbeat thudding.
“And if I’m being honest,” he added, “it’s been a long time since someone made me want to slow down.”
The silence stretched between you, thick with meaning.
You barely noticed the way your hand drifted across the table—until his fingers brushed yours, warm and rough and strangely reassuring.
“I’m not good at this,” you said softly.
“I don’t care if you’re bad at it,” he replied. “I just care that it’s real.”
⸻
By the time you stepped out into the night air again, you weren’t ready to say goodbye. He wasn’t either.
So when he asked if you wanted to walk back with him to his hotel, you said yes.
Not because you were sure. Not because you felt like you should. But because something about him—about tonight—made you feel safe in the mess. Seen.
The walk was quiet. Comfortable. The occasional car passed. The city hummed around you. And Johnny, somehow, didn’t fill the silence with jokes. He just matched your pace and held the door for you like he hadn’t once jumped off a roof for a laugh.
⸻
His hotel room was too nice for someone like him. Sleek. Minimal. Very un-Jackass.
He dropped his keycard on the counter, turned to you, and scratched the back of his neck.
“This part’s always awkward,” he admitted. “The, uh, figuring-out-what-happens-now part.”
You swallowed. “I know I said I haven’t… done anything like this before, but I’m not scared. Just…”
“New,” he finished.
You nodded.
He walked over slowly, giving you every chance to stop him, but you didn’t. You stood your ground as he reached out and gently took your face in both hands.
“I’m not gonna rush this,” he said, eyes flicking between yours. “You say stop, it’s stop. You change your mind, it’s cool. But if you want me to kiss you—”
“I do,” you whispered.
And he did.
It wasn’t the kind of kiss you expected from someone like him—wild, erratic, full of adrenaline. It was slow. Focused. His lips were softer than they had any right to be, his hands steady as they cradled your jaw. He kissed you like you were the only thing holding him to the earth.
You sighed into it, letting your arms slide around his waist.
He deepened it just a little—just enough to make you feel it in your knees—before he pulled back and rested his forehead against yours.
“I could get used to that,” he said, voice rough.
You smiled, heart pounding. “So could I.”
His lips were still brushing yours when you whispered, “I want this.”
Johnny paused.
Not because he didn’t believe you. But because you were trembling just enough for him to feel it through your clothes.
He pulled back slowly, resting his hands at your hips, like he was anchoring himself there. “You sure?”
You nodded, heart pounding in your throat. “I’ve thought about it before. Not just… sex. But with someone who makes me feel something.”
He gave you a small, crooked smile. “And I make you feel something?”
You laughed softly. “Johnny, you make me feel everything.”
That grin faltered for a second, replaced with something deeper—something almost reverent.
He kissed you again, slower this time. No urgency. Just the weight of possibility passing between you.
Then he whispered, “Let me take care of you.”
You found yourself being guided gently toward the bed. Johnny’s touch never rushed, never forceful—just steady, warm, patient.
“You good?” he asked, hands pausing at the hem of your shirt.
You swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. I trust you.”
That did something to him. You could see it in his eyes—how careful he became. Like the weight of that trust mattered more than anything.
He tugged your shirt over your head, pausing only to kiss the bare skin just above your heart. Then he let his hands drift down your arms, eyes tracing every inch like he was memorizing you.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, like it wasn’t even a question.
Your breath hitched. “You’ve probably said that to a lot of girls.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, kissing the top of your shoulder. “But never like this.”
His fingers worked at your jeans, slow and precise, giving you time to breathe, time to change your mind—but you didn’t want to. You wanted to see where this went.
He kissed every inch of exposed skin as he helped you out of them, his palms firm but gentle at your hips, down your thighs.
When you stood in front of him in nothing but your underwear, he stepped back just slightly, looking you over with genuine admiration.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “How the hell am I supposed to behave now?”
You bit your lip. “Maybe don’t.”
That made him laugh, low and warm, as he reached for the hem of his own shirt. You watched, spellbound, as he peeled it off—revealing that lean, wiry frame you’d seen a hundred times onscreen, now real and right in front of you.
Faded bruises. Scars. Tattooed chaos.
And still, something soft in the way he looked at you.
“C’mere,” he said, pulling you close again, skin to skin.
The first time his chest pressed against yours, you gasped at the heat of it, the feel of him—all bone and muscle and heartbeat.
He kissed your temple. “Still okay?”
“Yes,” you breathed. “Don’t stop.”
The bed dipped beneath you both as he climbed in, settling beside you instead of over you. His touch stayed exploratory—not demanding.
“You nervous?” he asked quietly, fingers tracing your ribs beneath the curve of your bra.
You nodded. “A little.”
“I’ll talk you through it,” he murmured, kissing your jaw, then your neck. “No pressure. No rush. Just me, and you, and this.”
Your fingers dug lightly into his back as he moved lower, lips trailing warmth down your collarbone.
He whispered everything he was doing—where he was touching, why—like a guided meditation with a dirty mouth. And God, it worked. It grounded you. Made you feel like this wasn’t just happening to you—it was something you were doing together.
When his hands slid beneath your bra and cupped your breasts, he groaned softly into your skin. “You feel even better than I imagined.”
You tilted your head, flushed. “You imagined this?”
“Babe,” he said, grinning into your cleavage, “I’ve been imagining it all day.”
You laughed, breathless, as he undid the clasp and tossed your bra aside.
Then he paused, just for a second—eyes meeting yours—before he leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth.
You cried out softly, hips twitching at the sudden spike of pleasure. He groaned at the sound, sucked a little harder, then switched to the other side, hand trailing down your stomach.
“Still good?” he murmured.
“Yes,” you gasped.
He smiled against your skin. “Then hold on, baby. ‘Cause I haven’t even gotten started yet.”
“Relax,” Johnny whispered as his hand slid down between your legs. “Let me feel you.”
You were already soaked, the cotton of your underwear clinging to you in a way that made him groan against your neck.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, pressing a kiss beneath your jaw. “You’re so wet. You been holding onto this for a while, haven’t you?”
You couldn’t speak—could barely think. You just nodded, hips rocking into his palm.
He touched you through the fabric first, slow. The pad of his finger traced the shape of you, finding your clit with practiced ease. He didn’t rush—just circled, barely-there pressure, teasing you until your thighs started to shake.
“You’re doing so good,” he said softly. “Let me take these off, baby.”
You lifted your hips and let him slide your underwear down your legs. When you were finally bare beneath him, he took a second—just looked—and exhaled like the sight physically did something to him.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmured, fingers dragging gently through your folds. “All of you.”
Then his mouth replaced his hand.
You gasped—loud—as he licked a slow stripe from your entrance to your clit, then did it again, like he needed the taste.
“Oh my God—” you panted, hips lifting.
He grinned against you. “You taste even better than I imagined. Think I could stay here all night.”
And he almost did.
His tongue moved in slow, teasing patterns, sucking and flicking until your moans filled the room. He didn’t rush your build-up—just watched you unravel, voice full of praise every time you whimpered his name.
When you started to tighten, he slowed down.
“Not yet,” he said, voice gravel over honey. “I wanna be inside you when you come.”
You blinked up at him, dazed and trembling. “Are you sure? I—what if I’m not good?”
He smiled, the kind of soft, warm grin that made your chest ache. “There’s no such thing as bad when it’s real.”
Then he kissed you—deeply, like you hadn’t just had his mouth on you seconds ago—and when he pulled back, you felt stripped down to your soul.
“Okay,” you whispered. “I want you.”
He reached into the nightstand, rolled on a condom, then came back to you—slower this time, gentler. He hovered above you, arms caging your head, eyes locked on yours.
“I’m gonna go slow,” he said, kissing your forehead. “Tell me if it hurts. I’ll stop.”
You nodded.
Then he pushed in.
Your breath caught—stretch, pressure, a little ache—and your hands fisted in the sheets.
Johnny didn’t move.
He just kissed your jaw, whispered praise, waited until your muscles stopped clenching around him. He was warm, solid, grounding.
“You okay?” he asked again.
You nodded, slowly. “Yeah. Just… full.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, baby. You’re perfect like this.”
When he started to move, it was so slow—shallow thrusts, hips rocking just enough to make you feel everything. His hand found yours and laced your fingers together, grounding you.
“You feel so fucking good,” he murmured. “you’re taking me so well.”
You moaned at the words, and he grinned. “Oh, you like that, huh?”
“Yeah,” you gasped.
“Good. ‘Cause I’ve got a lot more where that came from.”
He began thrusting a little deeper, the stretch easing now, your body melting beneath him. The ache had turned into something else entirely—hot and thick and needy.
“You’re doing so good, sweetheart,” he said, voice low and strained. “Can’t believe this is your first time. You feel like a fucking dream.”
You whimpered, pulling him closer. “Johnny—please—”
“I got you,” he promised. “Let go for me. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”
It hit like a wave—your orgasm crashing through you, sharp and sweet, clenching around him until he groaned deep in his chest and buried himself to the hilt.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “You feel so good—I can’t—”
He followed with a loud, broken moan, hips jerking once, twice, then stilling.
He stayed inside you for a while, kissing your cheek, your temple, brushing your hair back from your sweaty face.
“You okay?” he asked again.
“Yeah,” you whispered, still dazed. “I feel amazing.”
He pulled out carefully, kissed your knee, then got up to grab a towel and clean you gently.
You watched him move—naked, sweet, ridiculously tender—and felt something deeper than lust settle in your chest.
When he came back, he crawled under the sheets and pulled you into his arms without a word.
You curled into his chest, fingers tracing the ink on his ribs.
“Thank you,” you said quietly.
He looked down at you, brow furrowed like you’d said something wild. “For what?”
“For being so…” You trailed off, searching for the right word. “Kind.”
His grin was soft this time. “Hey. You made it easy.”
You fell asleep on his chest, his arm around you, his fingers idly stroking your spine. For a man who once got punched by a bull on camera, he held you like you were made of glass.
And maybe, just maybe, you’d let him do it again tomorrow.
Could you perhaps do a Johnny angst with a happy ending? I don’t have anything particular in mind, just wanting to suffer 🫶🏻
Only You (Johnny Knoxville x Reader)
Summary: “Am I not enough for you anymore?” You threw your hands up in exasperation, “I mean - Jesus! You were practically undressing her with your eyes!” Your voice rose sharply, your chest feeling tight as you exploded on him.
“W-Wait a second!” Johnny’s voice rose, and he held up a shaking hand towards you, “Where are you even getting the idea that you’re ‘not enough for me’?” He asked, and you scoffed incredulously.
“When I watch my boyfriend eye fuck some blonde and look at her the exact same way he looks at me.”
AN: aaaaaaaaah this was actually so much fun to write! I don’t know if this exactly the angst you were looking for, I do have another one I was writing with this ask, but I don’t know if I’m as confident in it as I am this one. As usual, no beta reader, we die like men. Requests are still open! Onto the story! ✨
You grit your teeth, the sound of the interviewer’s laughter almost like an ice pick through your skull. A sour expression was on your face as you tried to tune her out, but when your boyfriend purred another compliment to her, you hit your breaking point. It was no secret that Johnny was a natural flirt - Hell, most of the time, he did it unintentionally - but with how many compliments he had thrown at her, it was starting to feel like it wasn’t unintentional anymore. You had enough.
You turned on your heel, tears stinging your eyes. You all but ran to the exit door, slamming it open with your hands. You could hear a small commotion inside, the blonde’s voice asking if everything was okay, and something unintelligible from Johnny. You stepped outside into the hot June air of Los Angeles, your breath catching in your throat. You ran your hand up from your forehead into your hair, trying to clear your thoughts.
Your hands fumbled around in your Johnny’s flannel, trying to find the cigarette pack you had hastily grabbed this morning. You pulled out the pack, the lighter placed inside, and sparked up a cigarette. You took a long drag, trying to use the stale taste of the tobacco to calm your nerves.
It was a silent ten minutes, the sound of the city surrounding you, before you heard the door open behind you. You didn’t turn around, already on your fourth cigarette. You took a long drag, looking down at the parking lot in front of you, where the past three cigarette butts were scattered on the ground.
“Don’t you know those things give you cancer?” You heard the southern drawl of your boyfriend’s accent, and usually the sound of it would make you smile. You grit your teeth, closing your eyes.
“I’m aware.” You spoke simply, your tone cold and emotionless. The air between the two of you chilled, and you felt him come up behind you. He wrapped his arms around you, resting his head on your shoulder.
“You’re mad.” He commented, his tone amused, but when you turned your head to meet his eyes, he quickly realized that it was much more than a simple anger.
“And you’re Einstein.” You spat, pulling out of his hands. He reached out for you, but you held up a hand, stopping him, “Not right now.” You heaved out a sigh, running a hand through your hair.
“Doll, is this because of that interview?” He asked, confusion crossing his features, “I mean, I know I was laying on the charm thick, but I didn’t thi-”
“Laying on the charm thick?!” Your voice rose sharply, cutting him off. He blinked, looking taken aback by your sudden interruption, “Holy shit, if you call what you did in there ‘Laying on the charm thick’, then I’d fucking hate to see what you actually flirting looks like!”
“H-Hey, now wait a minute.” Johnny held up a finger, his voice stuttering for a moment, “Doll, I can explain.”
“Oh!” You laughed humorlessly, crossing your arms over your chest, “You can explain? Let me guess, it’s also ‘Not what it looks like’?” You asked, raising an eyebrow. The look on his face told you that was his next set of words, “Because I’ll tell you what it looked like, PJ. It looked like you shamelessly flirting, while your girlfriend was standing less than a fucking foot away!” You spat, your hands coming to your head in frustration.
“O-Okay, you’ve got me there. I can see how it came across like that.” He grimaced, and you laughed humorlessly again.
“Am I not enough for you anymore?” You threw your hands up in exasperation, “I mean - Jesus! You were practically undressing her with your eyes!” Your voice rose sharply, your chest feeling tight as you exploded on him.
“W-Wait a second!” Johnny’s voice rose, and he held up a shaking hand towards you, “Where are you even getting the idea that you’re ‘not enough for me’?” He asked, and you scoffed incredulously.
“When I watch my boyfriend eye fuck some blonde and look at her the exact same way he looks at me.” You crossed your arms across your chest, wrapping them around you almost in protection. The sound of the cars honking on the street was making your emotions run even higher, and you shook your head.
“We will talk more about this later.” You held up a finger to silence him when he protested, “You’ve got more interviews to get through. I’m going home.” You dug the keys to your car out of your flannel pocket.
“Hon…” Johnny started, but you shook your head, meeting his eyes.
“I can’t sit here and watch the love of my fucking life flirt with other women like I don’t exist to him.” You admitted, your voice hollow, “I’ll see you at home.” And with that, you were stalking off across the parking lot to your car. You unlocked the doors, casting a glance over at Johnny, who hadn’t moved an inch. He was watching you with guilty eyes, and you tore your gaze away from him, getting into your car.
The drive home was silent, a pop song playing on the radio softly, but it was all background noise compared to the whirlwind in your brain. Your emotions were a jumbled mess of insecurities rearing their ugly head, deep sadness, and pure rage.
You made it home quickly, and you parked your car, sighing heavily. You let yourself in the front door, shutting the door behind you. You thought you would have a moment to yourself, but the piercing blue of Bam’s eyes caught you off guard. You crossed your arms, looking at the brunet who was currently laid across your couch.
“Do I even want to know why you’re here? Or how you got in?” You asked, leaning against the back of the couch, looking down at your friend.
“Johnny called me. Told me to be here before you got home.” Bam answered simply, sitting up on the couch and patting the space next to him, “Said you needed someone to scream at, and you know I’m your man for that. And you don’t want to know how I got in.”
“I’m not gonna scream at you, fuck.” You sighed, coming around the couch and flopping down next to Bam. You rested your head against the back of the couch, closing your eyes, “I shouldn’t even be as upset as I am. I know that rationally, but-”
“Seeing another girl smile at Johnny the same way you do sets your blood on fire?” Bam finished your sentence, and you looked over at him with depressed eyes.
“Yeah.” You answered slowly, the depression deepening on your face as you unpacked your emotions, “I know Johnny is an attractive man. I’d be stupid to think that there aren’t women who look at him and want him with every breath they take. But seeing Johnny playing into their fantasies - albeit with his words and not physically - just doesn’t sit right with me. I watched him look at that girl the same way he looks at me in bed.” You spoke softly, your eyes slipping closed again as you heaved out a sigh.
“I’m not going to sit here and say your brain is stupid for thinking like that.” Bam started, his finger idly spinning one of his rings around his finger, “But I’m gonna tell you that Knox isn’t one to fuck around on the one he loves.” You opened your eyes, looking over at him with a soft, confused look. Bam shifted uncomfortably, having to play therapist being something he wasn’t used to.
“Look, he was with this one chick for years.” Bam shifted on the couch to where he was facing you, throwing one of his arms over the back of the couch, “Her name was Brittany. He started dating her when we first started Jackass, and he was completely devoted to her. Anything she wanted, she got. If she even hinted at wanting something, he was immediately buying it for her. Every single second of his day was spent on her, and she took fucking advantage of that.” He swallowed, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
“She was fucking around on him, behind his back. Everyone knew it. Hell, I think even he knew it, but he was too scared to be alone. She was all he had ever known, so he suffered through it. Multiple opportunities were opened to him during that to fuck around on her, but he never took it. He always said that two wrongs don’t make a right, so he wasn’t going to do unto her the same pain when he hated what was happening to him.” Bam explained, and it felt like your breath was stolen from your lungs, “So, I completely get having insecurities, but trust me when I say you have nothing to worry about for Johnny fucking around on you or randomly leaving you. He’s a people pleaser, yes, but all you have to do is talk to him and that comes to a complete stop.” Bam gave you a lopsided smile, “We all see how happy he is with you. He’s made a complete 180 turn from the broken dude he used to be, and - Fuck - you treat him like he’s made of gold. You two are made for each other, through and through.”
“Bam…” You pressed your lips together in a thin line, your mind racing, “I was a fucking bitch to him before I left set.” Your voice was quiet, and Bam let out a small chuckle.
“Sweetheart, I can assure you, you weren’t a bitch to him. You were dealin’ with some weird emotions, and if you can explain that to him, there isn’t gonna be any bad blood between you two. Knox is a good ass dude. He completely gets having insecurities, but he’s not a mind reader.” He looked at you pointedly, and you cringed slightly.
“And it’s not fair to expect him to know what’s going on in my mind if I don’t say anything.” Your voice was small, the weight of everything hitting you all at once.
“Atta girl.” Bam snapped his fingers, “You have to talk to him about how you’re feeling. He can’t just magically know what’s going on in your head without you talking to him about what you’re feeling.” He gave you another lopsided smile, and you let out a heavy sigh.
“I appreciate you, Bam.” You gave him a soft smile, looking over at him. He shrugged nonchalantly, opening his arms for a hug. You chuckled gently, leaning forward and wrapping your arms around him. Your mouth pressed against his shoulder, “I don’t know what I would do without you in my life.” You murmured into the fabric of his jacket.
“You wouldn’t have a kickass friend who pulls your head out of your ass and gives you damn good advice.” Bam joked, a lighthearted smile on his lips, and you let out a soft laugh as well.
It was a couple of hours later when Johnny finally came home, the smell of dinner cooking making his stomach grumble. Bam had been long gone by then, having sent Johnny a text that you were okay now. Johnny had tried to send you a couple of texts, but Bam advised against it, telling Johnny to give you space right now so you could sort through all of your emotions.
The sound of your gentle singing made Johnny’s heart clench in his chest, and he sighed softly. He closed the front door gently behind him, kicking off his shoes and placing them in the small shoe rack you had bought a couple of months ago. In his hand was a bouquet of flowers, a small piece of his long winded apology. He walked through the living room and made his way into the kitchen, his heart hammering in his throat. When he turned the corner into the kitchen, you were standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot with potatoes in it. You turned your head towards him, and he thrust the flowers out to you.
“Doll, I cannot apologize enough.” He started, his voice strained. You gently took the flowers from his hands, your breathing catching in your throat, “I just-”
“Baby.” You cut him off, blinking up towards the ceiling, trying to push back the tears that threatened to stream down your cheeks. You looked back at him, tears hanging heavy on your lashline, “You don’t have to apologize for anything. I promise you.”
“I do though.” He protested, swallowing thickly. You turned from him, gently placing the flowers on the counter as you turned down the burner that the pot was sitting on. You turned back towards him, “I’m always so obsessed with this stupid ‘bad boy, flirty southern’ image that I don’t stop to think about how it affects the woman I’m in love with.”
“You can’t beat yourself up too much, PJ.” You shook your head, your tongue darting out to wet your lips, “I got upset and angry with you, when I’ve never explained to you my own emotions. You’re not a mindreader, and it’s not fair of me to expect you to be one.” Johnny blinked in confusion, and you crossed your arms tightly in front of you, avoiding his eyes for a moment, “I know there are much prettier women out there than me. I’d be an idiot and completely vain to think I was the most drop dead gorgeous woman out there.” You swallowed thickly, meeting Johnny’s eyes, “It’s naive of me to think that no one in the world flirts with you - You’re extremely attractive. And it’s not fair of me to get upset with you when women flirt with you. But I can’t help but get upset whenever you flirt with them right back.”
“Doll…” Johnny whispered, but you held up a finger, cutting him off again.
“Please let me finish.” You looked at him, and he nodded, “I am so goddamned terrified that some wind is going to blow wrong and steal you away from me. I am so scared that some pretty blonde is going to waltz into your life and make you realize you don’t love me as much as you thought you did. I am beyond terrified that you’re going to wake up one day, look over at me, and ask yourself ‘Do I really like her as much as I originally thought?’.” Your voice broke with the threat of tears, and your breath was shaky in your chest, “I know nothing is guaranteed, but the idea of not waking up beside you is one that makes me so scared each and every single day. The idea of you just leaving me randomly one day is something that rattles around in my head like a fucking pinball, and it haunts my mind every single second of my life.” You ran your fingers through your hair, sighing heavily.
Johnny was silent for a moment, before he crossed the kitchen to you, wrapping his arms around your neck. His hand came to your hair, gently holding your head against his chest. He rested his chin on top of your head, before moving his head to where his lips were pressed against your hair. You gasped softly, clutching onto Johnny tightly.
“My babydoll…” He whispered into your hair, pulling back and looking into your eyes, “No one in this world will ever compare to you. No single person walking this earth right now, or that will walk on this earth in the future, will ever be able to replace you. If I lost you due to my own stupid mistakes, I would never be able to forgive myself.” His eyes were filled with genuine love and sincerity, and the sight made your eyes well up with tears again, “I promise you, there will never be a day that I wake up and question my love for you. There will never be a day where I will even entertain someone’s idea of being on my arm, because that’s where I want to keep you for the rest of our lives. I want to marry you, sweetheart. I want to watch our kids running around in the backyard, I want to grow old with you.”
“PJ…” You whispered, but he pulled you into a breathless kiss, his hand cradling the back of your head. Your hands ghosted over his wrists as he poured every single ounce of love he felt for you into the bruising kiss. After a few seconds, he pulled away, resting his forehead against yours.
“I cannot apologize to you enough, doll. Please forgive me.” He whispered, his eyes welling up with tears.
“Always, PJ.” You whispered back, closing your eyes, “I love you so fucking much.” You smiled up at him, and he let out a breathless chuckle.
“Oh, doll. I love you so much more.” He pressed kiss after kiss to your forehead, making you giggle, “There’s that laugh.” He murmured against your skin, a smile crossing his lips.
“C’mon, you gotta let me finish cooking.” You whined, giggling again as he pulled you harder against him, a deep grumble of protest echoed out of his chest, “I know you haven’t eaten all day, and I don’t want you to waste away to nothing.” You teased.
“Fine, fine.” He relented finally, letting you out of his arms, “Only because you said my favourite word.” He leaned back against the kitchen counter, smiling wistfully.
“What, cooking?” You stuck your tongue out at him, which made him laugh brightly. As you looked over at him, warmth and love bloomed in your chest. His words of ‘No one in this world will ever compare to you’ echoed through your mind and was a soothing, healing balm to your soul. You had a feeling that everything would be okay, as long as you two were by each other’s sides.
→ Summary: The Jackass crew decided to come back for a second movie, and they'd never be able to do it without their trusty angel keeping them all alive during their death-defying stunts. This time around, you're married, pregnant, and pretty sure it isn't a prank anymore.
→ Word Count: 11.8k
→ Multi Chapter
Jackass Number Two
<- prev. chapter
Four years later, and they still decided to film all their Pennsylvania scenes in goddamn winter.
It had stopped snowing just before you’d arrived, but there were still piles of snow dotted around the empty parking lot, and just the sight of them made you feel colder than you probably were. You burrowed deeper into the faux shearling jacket you’d brought this time, much more used to packing for West Chester with how often you’d visited it over the past four years at April’s insistence. You shoved your gloved hands into your fur-lined pockets and ducked your chin below the matching black scarf. You were still shivering. Your cable knit sweater was no help, nor was the thick Henley underneath, and your toes still felt like they were going to fall off in your heavy boots. You were definitely pouting.
“What’s with the face, angel?” Johnny asked, leaning against one of the penny farthing bikes they had rented for this stunt. It wobbled a little, and he twisted to catch it. It would usually make you giggle to see him flail around, all gangly limbs he controlled in the most over-the-top fashion, even without the cameras on him. You were too cold to giggle.
Johnny noticed immediately, and the teasing grin fell off his face. He left behind the bicycle to wrap his arms around your waist and tug you as close as your many layers would allow him. At least that warmed you a little.
“C’mon, pretty girl, what’s got you so pouty?”
“Why do we always come to Pennsylvania when it’s cold?”
Amusement flashed over his face, like he couldn’t believe you were still complaining about the cold, but he held back the chuckle that he so clearly wanted to let free. “Angel.” One of his hands slid around to sit on the bump that was becoming just a little bit more noticeable. It was, however, hidden pretty well by your considerable number of layers to keep out the chill. “Better to bring you to West Chester when you’re four months along and not eight. Right?”
You shrugged, but you knew Johnny was right. The boys were all set to go to India next month for filming, then you’d head to Miami after that, and from May you wanted to be in Los Angeles, to be close enough to your OB in case your water broke when you were least expecting it. It’d be just your luck you’d go into labour while they were filming.
“Please stop pouting.” He leaned down to press a kiss to your nose. “Else I’d be a shit personal jester.” It was enough to make you smile again, and he mirrored you, bright and sparkling even in the cold. This time, he pecked your lips. “Promise, after this, we’ll get you right back to Phil and Ape’s to get you some hot chocolate. Hand on heart.” He lifted his left hand to sit on the right side of his chest, and you finally burst out laughing, quickly moving his hand to the other side of his body. You liked the way his golden wedding band twinkled in the low, grey sunlight.
You kept yours on a chain around your neck when you were working, out of the way and safe. It was gold and diamond, just as you deserved – or so Johnny claimed when he presented it in that pretty Las Vegas chapel in front of the Elvis impersonator who cried during your vows.
You moved back into place beside Jeff and Rick behind the cameras, out of the way of the stunt. Johnny and Ryan were supposed to try stunts usually reserved for BMX’s on the penny farthings they’d rented just for this, and you’d all spent the better half of an hour setting up the ramps around the empty parking lot just to watch them probably hurt themselves.
“Now, it’s time for a little Bicentennial BMX-ing.”
The two of them clambered up onto their penny farthings and struggled for a few minutes as they got used to the two different wheel sizes, wobbling as they cycled from one side of the set to the other.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” Johnny called out, and you had to refrain from telling him that he was in completely the wrong century with that. “This is really gonna suck.”
“Why would anyone ride this shit?” Ryan asked. “Like, what’s the reasoning? Why wouldn’t they just make two of the same size wheel?”
Your giggles cut off as you watched Johnny ride straight towards a thick snow mound with a too-loud war cry. You prepared for the worst watching him get closer and closer, and then the wheel caught in the snow and he was thrown from the seat. He was clearly expecting to fall into the snow, but he hurtled right over the mound and landed on his face. You heard the unmistakable thud of his face smacking against the concrete, but you’d gotten used to not running straight into helping even if you really wanted to. More often than not, the boys would get back up and shake it off.
Instead, you clutched your backpack closer to yourself as you watched your husband roll around the ground, clutching at his head, and whimpering to himself.
“You alright, PJ?” you, eventually, asked. You knew it’d be loud enough for the cameras to pick up.
“Yeah.” His reply was weak, and you didn’t believe him at all. He only whimpered like that when he really hurt himself. He had a completely different kind of whimpering for the bedroom.
“You didn’t land it,” Rick pointed out.
“My head stopped my body from getting really hurt.”
As everyone else laughed, you moved into action. The concrete was chilly through the knees of your corduroy pants, but you ignored that to check on Johnny. He blinked up at you as you reached for him, fingers smoothing over the bump that was already beginning to form on his temple. His hand curled around your own.
“I’m okay, angel, promise.”
“Who are you?” you asked, batting his hand away so you could get a better look at his head. He hadn’t cut it, thankfully, though the bump looked like it would bruise too. He’d have a nasty headache shortly.
“Johnny Knoxville. PJ to my friends. Philip John to my ma. Your husband.”
You blushed under his intense gaze. He wasn’t concussed, but you still wanted to check. Of course, he would use any excuse to make your cheeks flame, especially with the camera zooming in on the gentle way you twisted his head around to get a better look at where he’d hit it. Your fingers felt around for any more bumps starting to rise.
“Where are you?”
“Heaven, I think. Or did they send you to Earth just for me?”
Your fingers froze in their prodding, and you settled what you hoped was an unimpressed look onto him. Though your cheeks were too red, and you were doing a pretty bad job at keeping your smile from pushing through.
“Next time, I’m gonna leave you to bleed out.”
Johnny laughed so loudly he fell back onto the concrete, and you were sure he was going to hit his head again. Eventually, you got him back on his feet, and even though Ryan was sure he could try a stunt or two, the rest of the crew knew that Johnny’s face plant was more than enough for the cameras, and you wanted to be able to keep an eye on that bump without adding any more to his face. If he even attempted to cycle up a ramp, he’d probably break his nose, and you weren’t dealing with that so early on in filming.
Back at the Margera’s house, you found Bam, Brandon Novak, and Brandon DiCamillo shovelling snow on their front lawn. You ignored their random act of goodwill to rush indoors and find warmth again, greeting April and Phil with a hearty hello while Johnny’s laughter rang loudly behind you. You hung up your jacket, tugged off the sweater, and found April already making you a hot chocolate in the kitchen.
“I just knew you’d be freezing out there, sweetheart.” She added those tiny marshmallows you’d never liked until your pregnancy, and then suddenly, they were one of your favourite snacks. Those and pickles and root beer. Johnny was constantly getting grossed out by the random cravings you filled your cart with. One day you’d eaten so many pickles he had to hide the jars in a cupboard you couldn’t reach.
“Can I live here forever?” you asked, holding the hot chocolate in your hands just to feel the warmth spike through your veins. Outside, you could hear Johnny laughing. You’d gotten used to ignoring the sound, otherwise you were sure to stress yourself out worrying what he was getting up to. You were pretty sure April was the same with Bam and all his friends.
“I’d swap you for Bam in a heartbeat.”
You giggled together, and sat at the kitchen table to drink your hot chocolates. You told April all about the stunt, but by the end of your story, you were yawning far more than you should have been. The pregnancy had made you sleepy, and you found yourself napping probably more often than you were awake. Every time Kristy came to visit you, you’d start falling asleep while she was in the middle of a story, yet she never listened to your apologies. She was just as excited for the baby as you were.
You napped in Bam’s old bedroom, still decorated to his exact tastes, but were awoken by shouting you recognised too well. Most likely, Bam had done something to piss off his mom again. You crawled out of bed, wrapped a blanket around your shoulders, and shuffled through to the hallway to see what all the shouting was about.
Brandon Novak went racing past you to ski down the makeshift ski slope they had made of April and Phil’s staircase. He tore right through their door. You blinked tiredly at the snow paving the staircase. Now the shovelling made sense; Bam would never shovel his parents’ lawn just because. There was always something to be had out of it.
Johnny pulled you into his side as laughter bounced through the house. You could hear Phil saying that he wanted a shot, and April begging them to get the snow out of the house before it melted and flooded the place.
You nuzzled your face into Johnny’s neck.
“Still tired, angel?”
“You’re a tiring lot.”
“I’ll buy you some of those extra-large pickles for dealing with us.”
And you smiled against his neck, because he would have bought them anyway.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
Kristy held up the three-piece bedding set that was loosely based on a garden theme. Your face crumpled. The embroidered butterflies on the quilt were too cute, and anything you found adorable filled your eyes with tears these days.
“You need this,” Kristy said. “She needs this.” She nodded down at your slightly more noticeable bump. You’d found out you were having a girl just before Johnny went to India to film with the others, and, of course, your best friend wanted to be the one to take you shopping for all the girly stuff you could find.
“We do need that.”
Kristy grinned triumphantly as she threw the bedding set in the shopping cart that was already half-full of clothes, room accessories, and the like that you probably didn’t need so much of but that you couldn’t help but add. Everything just looked so cute. Everything looked necessary. Of course, you needed four different sleepsacks, one of each of the colours available, because you needed one to use while another was washing, one as a spare, and one for travelling. That just made sense. Of course, you needed all those bibs. You didn’t know how messy your baby girl was going to be. Of course, you needed those little socks in pink and those ones in yellow because they had ducks embroidered on them, and all the other ones Kristy kept throwing in that you didn’t say no to just in case she got cold feet.
It was a good thing Johnny wasn’t home. You’d never hear the end of it when you got back with all those bags full of all those things you absolutely could buy later.
“But why buy later what you can buy now?” Kristy reminded you, then picked up a mobile with hopping green frogs dangling from it. “Like this. She’s going to need a mobile to keep her occupied.”
“That is adorable. But–” you grabbed the mobile sitting nearby, with the yellow ducks hanging from it. “This is so her.”
“Oh my gosh, that is so baby Knox.”
Kristy had taken to calling your unborn daughter Knox while you and Johnny ruminated on the list of names that seemed only to grow with each passing day. Every time you tried to cut it down, you’d find another name to add that you just couldn’t agree on. Even the cast and crew had picked up on the nickname and often asked you how Baby Knox was getting on. You were worried it would stick, and they’d call her that even when she had a name of her own.
You added the mobile, a couple more teddy bears, the cutest little dresses, even more bedding, and you stopped caring about where you would store it all. It could all sit in boxes until Johnny came home, and then you could take him to go and buy the furniture for her nursery, and then you could worry about storage. But for now, you were going to buy all the cute stuff, and your husband could help you deal with it in a couple of weeks.
“This–”
“No.” You shook your head at the lace bassinet skirt and hood that most likely should have stopped being manufactured decades ago.
“What do you mean no?”
“I mean, I think it looks like it was made for Gone with the Wind and they forgot to burn it.”
Kristy frowned at you, but upon closer inspection, she had to admit you were right. There was no way you’d be caught with anything she easily could have found in her grandmother’s house, so she left it behind and found much cuter accessories for the bassinet – that you still didn’t have – to fill your shopping cart with. All of this stuff was just going in boxes anyway. You weren’t even going to worry about them until closer to the due date; you just wanted to be prepared.
That’s what you kept telling yourself on the way to the tills.
But nothing ever just sat in their boxes. Every night while Johnny was away, you’d sit cross-legged on the floor of the nursery that still needed to be painted and still needed furniture, and you’d go through each item piece by piece. You’d hold the tiny onesies to your chest and spend hours telling your daughter about every little thing you’d bought her. Just so she knew how much you loved her from the very start.
The night Johnny came home, it was close to midnight, and you’d fallen asleep hours ago. You never had as much energy as you did pre-pregnancy, and now you’d start falling asleep as soon as it got dark outside, as if your body knew just how much you needed the rest. You didn’t even hear him come in. You didn’t hear his suitcase bumping against the dresser in the downstairs hallway; you didn’t hear the creak of the stairs under his feet; you didn’t hear his little giggle as he pushed open the door to find you sprawled across the bed like you’d forgotten he was supposed to come home that night. And you didn’t hear the way he slipped into bed beside you and leaned down to whisper a greeting to the baby who kicked as soon as she heard him.
The next morning, he was completely dumbfounded by all the boxes you’d already filled the nursery with.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
It was warm enough in Miami to go to the beach.
You’d gone to Florida to visit Steve-O’s family and film more stupid stunts, but with the sun shining so brightly and the crew’s hangovers bursting their heads, you clambered into the crew vans and headed down to the quieter Dania Beach.
Behind the windbreaker the boys had hammered into the sand, you could hear the rest of the cast laughing, loud and choking. You ignored it. Whenever they were laughing like that, you knew it was always something bad, something that probably wouldn’t even make it into the movie but that they wanted to film anyway just because they could. You glanced up at Johnny over your sunglasses and caught the smile struggling on his lips.
“I thought we came here to relax?” You poked him, and he twisted back towards you, smile stretching into a full-sized grin.
“We are relaxing.” Your husband lay beside you on the sand, jostling your shoulder with his movements. He pointed out the kite that was just about stretching into the sky. “See that?” You hummed. “Guess who’s flying that?”
“I dunno. Ehren?”
Johnny did a perfect impression of a buzzer, and you poked him again, right between the ribs, just above another bruise from another stunt. You’d gotten used to finding him covered in bruises, and usually used them to map your kisses around his body until his legs were shaking and he was making you stop before he came too soon. But you weren’t going to think about that on the beach. Not when you were surrounded by strangers just trying to enjoy the sun.
“Wrong. Bam. Guess what he’s flying it with?”
“I’m gonna hate the answer, aren’t I?”
“His ass.”
Johnny dissolved into giggles, and you watched him, the humour rising in your chest. It was difficult to not laugh around Johnny, and though you tried to remain straight-faced, soon enough you too were giggling. For a moment, you could pretend it was just the two of you, spread out across the warm sand, the slightest salt-tinged breeze from the ocean skimming your bodies, Johnny’s laughter caressing you. All the other people on the beach didn’t matter. All those voices mixing in the air, the laughter from your friends caught behind the windbreaker, the tinny music from strangers’ radios. You didn’t think about Jeff’s camcorder or the kite high above you. Not when the sun was kissing your skin in just the right way. Not when Johnny leaned close enough that you could feel his body pressing against you.
He was surprisingly talented at making you feel like the only two people in the world.
Johnny pressed a kiss to the curve of your shoulder. “Have I told you how sexy you look in that bikini?” You were wearing a blue floral one you’d bought on the waterfront when you realised your boobs had grown too large for any of your other bikinis. Johnny had helped pick it out, though you could see him practically salivating at every set you held up to your body, but blue was his favourite colour, so you went with blue.
“Only five or six hundred times.”
Johnny spread his kisses along your shoulder, into the dip of your collarbone, and up to your pulse point. You tilted your chin up to give him better access to your neck. You didn’t care if people could see. Not when Johnny’s lips felt so good trailing over your skin, as warm as the sun, soft like the sea breeze.
“D’you believe me, darlin’, or need me to say it another five hundred times?”
Your giggle got cut off by your strangled moan as Johnny’s hand slid over your bump and landed on your thigh, squeezing just enough for you to feel it. He smelled less like cigarettes with every month you got closer to your due date, and though you did miss the ashy scent you’d grown used to over the years, you liked that now you could smell the sweat that clung to him without any interference. You blamed the odd need to always be within sniffing range on your new hormones, but you knew you just liked that smell. You tried not to let it show as you slid closer to him, tried to play it off as if you were still sunbathing and were barely paying attention to his light touches.
“What’ya doin’ there?”
“Sunbathing.”
“Uh-uh.” You shivered at the mocking tint to his voice. He fucking knew how much you liked it when he spoke to you like that. Just a little degrading, just enough to make you press your thighs together. “Looks to me, angel, like you’re trying to get me to touch you more. Out here. On the beach in front of all these people.”
His hand slid further around your thigh, long fingers stretching across your skin, grazing against the line of your bikini bottoms. “PJ,” you whined, as much of a warning as you could bite out when really, you did want him to touch you. Right here. On the beach in front of everybody.
“Nobody’ll notice if we disappear–”
“Everybody will notice.”
“C’mon, angel,” Johnny whined this time, head ducking into your shoulder so that his words blew cold air against your skin. You shivered, though you knew it was all because you liked the way his voice deepened, the way his accent drawled out of his mouth, the way his tongue curled around certain vowels. “Can’t keep my hands to myself when you look this good.” His hand curled over your stomach, and you felt his smirk. Just on the right side of smug. “Still can’t believe I managed to knock you up. Look so pretty with your little belly–”
You sat up, trying to hide the sudden wetness between your thighs, the quickening of your heartbeat, the fire you knew only your husband could quench in the back of one of the crew vans while you hoped the rest of the crew were too busy trying to outdo each other to notice your disappearance.
“You’re really desperate, Knoxville, you know that?” But you were still packing your stuff away as quickly as your hands would allow you, shoving your towels into your beach bag, not even caring to roll them up first. You could worry about that later, when you’d quenched the sudden thirst Johnny had brought to the forefront.
“Yeah, but you get off on making me so desperate, baby.”
And in that, Johnny Knoxville was completely correct.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
You spent more time at the Gary Leffew School of Bull Riding than you ever expected you would, but Johnny never laughed as much as he did when he watched people fail to bull ride.
He gave it a go more often than not, and the staff knew he was happy to try out anything with the bulls as long as a camera was pointed at him. Riding backwards, dressing up just to ride Mr Mean, they even had a stunt planned later that day where four of them were going to try to see-saw as bulls raced towards them. For that, they’d called in both you and Ed, with your backpacks full of equipment and worry already starting to set in as the cast and crew gathered in the stands. Nobody let you carry the backpack anymore now that you were six months along and they didn’t want you lifting anything heavy, so Ed had both strung over his shoulders. You could still bend down a little, though you weren’t exactly in the mood to go racing around a bull pen when one of them got thrown in the air against their will.
Rain had started to fall in a gentle, dreary drizzle, and you flipped up the hood of the hoodie you’d stolen from Johnny on the way out of the door that morning. Beside you, Chris did the same, grumbling about ruining his hair. He’d grown it out since the first movie, and now it hung just past his shoulders, bouncier and shinier than your hair had ever been. Today it sat in two braids on either side of his head like a schoolgirl, and you’d spent the entire drive in the crew van tugging on it just to annoy him.
Johnny shrugged off his leather jacket and slung it over the railing, leaning his forearms against it as you all watched them coax the huge, shaggy yak into place. You caught the fear fighting the excitement on his face. You never could quite understand why he enjoyed messing around in the bull pen so much, but it filled him with the sort of joy most people only ever found in children.
“I’ll ask again,” you said to Johnny, touching his elbow with your own. “Are you sure about this?”
“It’ll be funny.”
And you knew with that alone you’d never be able to convince your husband otherwise. As long as he could make everybody else laugh, you’d have to contend with Johnny putting himself in the stupidest, most dangerous situations. Even though you always watched with your heart beating in your throat and your knuckles whitening with worry, you always ended up laughing too.
For Johnny Knoxville, your laughter was worth the pain.
He left you with a kiss lingering on your temple, and you all gathered closer to watch him prepare in the middle of the bull pen. They set up the cameras. Everyone was here for the Toro Totter stunt later, all the cameramen, all the sound crew, all the riggers, all of you gathered in the stands to watch Johnny and his stupid friends play with bulls.
His red shirt was like a blazing symbol for the yak, and from the corner of the pen, you could see it starting to gear up to charge towards him. Your hands curled around the railing, knuckles paling. Chris stood slightly behind you to rest his chin on your shoulder, and you couldn’t tell if he was comforting you or comforting himself.
Johnny looked, unsurprisingly, sexy standing there. Somehow confident despite the yak staring him down, the rainwater sticking some hair to his head, his shirt hanging loosely around his body. He pulled out a blindfold and tied it around his head, and you knew he was thinking about the Bugs Bunny skit you’d caught the end dregs of on TV last night, loosely based on history. He tugged a half-empty packet of cigarettes from his back pocket, and pulled one out with his teeth, and you blamed your sudden flipping stomach on the baby hormones. Some weeks you were hornier than you’d ever been pre-pregnancy, and it didn’t help that the sight of Johnny with a cigarette hanging from his mouth spoke to the most primal parts of you.
He lit the cigarette just as the yak was let go.
He barely got a full drag out of it before the yak charged into him and sent him flying up into the air, doing the sort of flip you were sure only gymnasts could get away with. You looked away before you had to watch him hit the ground, but the sound was enough to have nausea rising up your throat. Everyone else erupted with laughter, and you slowly opened one eye to see your husband somehow managing to push himself to his feet. He still had that damn cigarette in his mouth.
He found you in the watching crowd, pointed like he’d always meant to do that, and winked, and it was enough to make you laugh too.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
You don’t remember pube shaver being in your job description.
But there you were, going around all the cast and crew while Rick’s camera followed you, taking a cheap razor from the dollar store to all the men’s pubes and collecting them in a plastic takeout container. Chris was happy to give you the whole bush he’d been growing, not caring about how he’d look hairless when he was able to get women either way, so you shaved, and shaved, and shaved until his curly brown hair filled the dish. After that, he followed you and Rick around with his metal guitar and sang songs about pubes.
He was always singing stupid songs around the set, and they never failed to make you laugh. Even now, as you tried to shave only a little bit off Bam, Chris’ high-pitched singing caught you off guard, and you laughed so hard you accidentally shaved far more than you were supposed to.
Bam jumped back from your razor. “Dude!”
You tried to apologise through your laughter, but it kept getting caught in your humour, and it didn’t help that Chris was still playing a stupid song about Bam’s pubes. Or the rather jagged, long hairless line through his pubes you’d accidentally created. This was Bam’s idea anyway, collecting all these pubes to stick to Ehren’s face as a fake beard. Which Ehren wasn’t supposed to know anything about. It was for some terror taxi bit that you didn’t think was going to end well, but that the rest of the boys found hilarious and that was probably going to make it into the movie anyway. They’d probably add this bit too, of you slipping from cast to crew to collect enough pubes to seem believable.
Ryan’s hair was as blonde and curly as the hair on top of his head; Rick’s smelled of sweat; Jeff’s was very, very fine; and Wee Man let you have some from his chest as well as his pubes. Eventually, you found your husband waiting for you in one of the crew vans, completely naked and covering his dick with his hand.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Letting you shave some of my pubes.”
You blinked at Johnny. Chris had given up on his singing to laugh so hard it sounded like he might even vomit, bent over and wheezing, choking on his laughter. Even Rick was trying not to shake the camera with his laugh, but you stood there with the razor pointed at your surprisingly naked husband.
“Let me rephrase because clearly all those concussions have made you stupid.” Chris fell to his knees, and his amusement even brought tears to his eyes. “Why are you naked?”
“To make it easier for you, angel.”
You looked at the camera and then back at him, at the clearly false innocence in his smile. He was clearly doing this just to get the funniest possible shot, and it had worked, even though you were doing a pretty good job at dampening your amusement – the fans would love that too, you knew. Chris’ laughter was starting to cramp his stomach, and yet he could not stop.
“How much am I taking off?”
“Just the tiniest little bit. Just enough for Ehren to say, ‘hey, I’m wearing Johnny Knoxville’s pubes’.” You shook your head, but your smile started to poke through, and he clearly caught it. As you leaned over him to shave off the smallest section of pubes that you could, you felt his finger reaching for your most ticklish spot, just between your armpit and your ribcage. You slapped his hand away.
“I have a razor, Knoxville. I’ll shave them all off.”
“No, you won’t,” he teased, but didn’t tickle you, after all. “You like ‘em too much.”
You ignored his teasing to shave off a little of his pubes and add them to the collection you’d amassed throughout the day. You kept going until eventually you’d managed to get pubes off of every man on set, including some you were pretty sure were infected with crabs, but they were still going to stick to Ehren’s face no matter what. You tried to warn against that. Nobody listened.
“Pube delivery,” you called out, knocking on the makeup department’s door. They weren’t alone. Johnny spun around in one of the leather makeup chairs like a terrible James Bond villain, holding a clean razor. You tried to back out of the room, but the door swung shut behind you, and there was Preston, leaning against the door to keep you from running out. You were just as much a part of the crew as the rest of them; you’d have to add to the pube pile.
“Well, well, well.” Wee Man uncurled from under the dressing table. “You thought you’d get out of this unscathed.”
“Come on, guys.”
“No way, young lady.”
Johnny stood, branding the razor like it was a sword. Wee Man held the camcorder up, and you were pretty sure they would use this bit in the credits like it was some found footage akin to the Blair Witch Project. Kristy always screamed too loudly when you appeared on the screen, even if only for a few seconds. You must have had, like, 10 minutes of screentime over all three seasons of Wildboyz, and still she acted like you were a real television star.
“Lift your arms.”
“My arms?”
“Don’t make me repeat yourself.”
You bit your tongue to hold back your laughter and lifted your arms. Preston held the pube container under your armpit as Johnny shaved, up and down and up, and your armpit hair joined the pile, sweaty from the long day on set. It was odd to say, but in that moment, staring down at your hair being shaken around to mix in with the rest of the crew, you felt like you were truly part of the team. All the pranks, all the jokes, all the after-parties, that was a pretty good start, but this is what made you feel like there was no separating you from the flock now. You’d be there for every Jackass movie just like the rest of them, an unwavering, unflinching group of total jackasses.
You started to cry, quietly, before you could hold back the tears.
“Hey, wait, are you crying?” Preston asked, the only one close enough to notice at first while Johnny and Wee Man danced around with the pube container.
“Ignore me,” you tried to wave off, though the tears fell faster than you were expecting. “It’s just the baby hormones. I cry at everything.”
Preston wrapped an arm around your shoulder and curled you closer to him. You tried to sniffle without being too loud. “Did we make you uncomfortable? Sorry–”
“No, no. I just.” The tears came harder, faster. You tried to blink them away, but it was never going to work, not when they were hot and stinging and emotional. Not when they were happy. “I just really feel part of the team.”
Preston tightened his grip on you with a laugh. “You’ve always been part of the team. You’re our medic.”
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
For some reason, you were back at A.L.S Technologies.
After Johnny’s long-lasting bruise from the last riot-gun control test – that you were still sure you could see the outline of every time you trailed kisses down his stomach – you don’t know why he decided to come back. Or why Ryan, Bam, and Dave decided to join him.
This one looked a hundred times more painful than the last one. You stared at the machine that would throw out all these tiny balls, and you were pretty sure hundreds of rubber balls were so much worse than that one beanbag all those years ago.
“We’re here with Daniel Alvarez from A.L.S Technologies, and uh, why don’t you explain what this is and what we’re gonna be doing?”
Daniel nodded. He at least looked more comfortable on screen than George was. “Well, this is the 460 Stingmore Mine–” Stingmore? God, the name was bad enough. “–which has approximately 745 calibre rubber balls in it, and they’ll fly out of there at about 500 feet per second.” Fuck. That was faster than the last one. It could tear right through them. “They use these charges on the outside of embassies to protect the gates from people trying to break in.”
“Looks like it’s going to suck.”
“It is. I promise.”
Johnny laughed loudly, but you were too busy staring at the weapon to join in. So, it seemed, where the three other men who now had to contend with the fact that they were supposed to stand there with Johnny and get shot at. With rubber balls going at such a speed, you wouldn’t be able to see them. Dave looked like he was about to throw up.
“Let me reiterate,” you said as soon as Johnny reached you. His hands slid over your far-more-noticeable bump and landed on your hips. He always had to be touching you in one way or another. Sometimes he would just play with your hair when you were close enough; sometimes he couldn’t help but kiss any slivers of your skin he could reach; and a lot of the time, he would lean behind you, wrap his arms around your waist, and hold up your bump so it didn’t have to do all the heavy lifting by yourself. “I think this is stupid.”
In front of the camera, Daniel Alvarez was setting up for the test shot.
“You’re so sexy when you use big words.”
You knew you shouldn’t give in to his bad habits, but he did look good when he smirked at you like that, and every time he called you sexy, you were pretty sure your blush took over your entire body and made you look like a walking STOP sign. You tugged on the collar of his shirt to pull him close enough to kiss, though you refused to let him deepen it when he tried to. Not in front of the rest of the crew. You still had to set some boundaries, and you weren’t going to start by letting Jeff Tremaine see you and Johnny tongue kiss.
“You’re going to get hurt.” Your lips touched briefly at your warning, and you felt him smile.
“That’s the plan, angel.”
You gathered to watch the practice shot, pulling on ear defenders at Daniel’s insistence. Johnny, for some reason, was allowed to press the button, and he did it as dramatically as any of you expected, slapping his hand down like this was some cartoon and he was trying to blow up his arch-nemesis. The rubber balls went flying out so fast you were sure you’d missed it entirely, until you looked up at the paper dummy and saw that it was completely destroyed.
Nausea crawled up your throat.
Beside you, Ryan and Bam ripped off their ear protectors and stormed from the room, talking about how they were absolutely not going to be doing that while Johnny cackled in delight. You never could quite understand how he found so much joy in putting himself in dangerous situations, but you were pretty sure a part of it was just because you were there to patch him up on the other side.
You turned away from the frayed paper and found Dave clutching his ear protectors to his chest, paler than the wall he was leaning against, looking moments away from retching up the Denny’s breakfast you’d had a few hours ago. You were still holding onto your own ear protectors as you slipped past the rest of the crew to reach him, head tilting in sympathy when you noticed the greenish tinge to the edges of his skin. His breathing was shallower than usual.
You’d never seen Dave actually nervous.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I just.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “I’m about to have an anxiety attack. I just can’t do this one.”
“Okay. That’s okay; you don’t have to do it. Come on, let’s get you some air.”
You wrapped your arm around Dave’s shoulder to lead him outside and noticed that he was shaking. You’d never seen him this scared before. Usually, Dave took on any challenge that the boys set for him. Sometimes, he cursed at them and called the idea stupid, but he did it anyway. This was one of the first times you’d seen any of them refuse to do a stunt. You led him past the rest of the crew, running your hand up and down his arm slowly so that he had something to focus his breathing on, and grabbed a bottle of water from the cool bag you’d stuffed full of water, Gatorade, and sugary snacks just in case one of the boys needed a pick-me-up. Strictly for medical reasons, you always told Jeff, who now had to help carry it because Johnny refused to let you carry anything.
Outside, Ryan and Bam were sharing a pack of cigarettes. You watched them finish the cigarettes they were smoking, crush them in the ashtray on the glass table between them, and then instantly grab a new one to light. For once, you didn’t tell them off, just led Dave over to the nearby metal staircase, and sat him down so you could help control his anxiety attack.
“Knoxville must be fucked in the head if he thinks we’re doing this,” Bam said, taking a drag of his cigarette before chewing on his fingernails.
Ryan nodded. “No fucking way am I going back in there.”
“Did you see what happened to that target?” Dave shuddered. “He’s gonna get himself killed doing that.” Dave looked up at you from between his hands. “Are you just gonna let him?”
“Do you think I can stop him?”
“Someone has to,” interjected Bam, using his cigarette to point at you. “I mean, Jesus, those things were lethal.” You didn’t tell him that, technically, they weren’t. The reason Johnny and Jeff chose A.L.S Technologies for their riot control stunts was that they specialised in non-lethal weapons, but Bam probably wouldn’t like the correction when he was cursing Johnny’s name.
The man in question appeared, clearly looking for the four of you. He grinned so widely you were sure he hadn’t caught on to the fact that they were all freaking out about the stunt. Well, until the three men started talking over each other about how they absolutely were not getting involved in this one. They were out. That was it. Johnny looked truly aghast. He’d never make anyone do a stunt they didn’t want to, but he was still going out there to stand in front of that weapon and let it demolish him.
You raised your hand just enough to shut them all up. “From a medical point of view, I’m not allowing Dave to participate.” Johnny blinked at you. You’d never used the medic argument to stop any of them getting involved, but Dave looked genuinely appreciative of your efforts. You motioned to his bottle of water to get him to keep drinking until his anxiety passed. Most likely, that wouldn’t be until you got back into the van to leave behind A.L.S Technologies for good.
“Really, man?”
“Doctor’s orders.”
Johnny turned his attention to Ryan, whom he was most likely to convince to join him, and that would be enough to get Bam to join in too. Bam would never allow Ryan to outdo him. “Come on. Dunn, come on, man.”
“Are you insane?”
“All you do is stand there.”
“And get killed? That thing is insane.”
“It’s just loud. It’s gonna hurt really bad, but it’s just loud.” And, somehow, that was enough to get Ryan to shrug and decide he was in. He crushed the last remnants of his cigarette in the ashtray, and because he was joining in, so was Bam. Maybe it was because Johnny told them the truth, but they followed him back inside, and once Dave had finished his water, so did the both of you.
Ryan and Bam had been given masks to cover their faces, but Johnny had gone without, choosing instead to cover his face and balls with his hands as if that was going to do anything but hurt him even more. Even from the other side of the room, you could see Bam’s knees shaking. Johnny gave the thumbs up, and your breath caught in your throat as you waited.
The bang reverberated around the room, and the tiny balls found their targets.
Through the haze of the smoke, it was carnage. Johnny, miraculously, managed to stay on his feet, but Ryan tore off his mask and fell to his knees, and both of them yelled out all the curse words they knew because they didn’t know what else to do with all that pain bouncing around their bodies. It was Bam, curled in on himself on the floor, who was suspiciously quiet.
You didn’t like that.
Bam was usually the first one to shout and swear, to make his pain and annoyance well known to anyone who would listen. You started forward, but Johnny lifted his hand to stop you, and you froze on the outskirts of the camera’s lens. But you really didn’t like the way Bam had barely moved since he’d gone down.
“Are you all right?” Johnny asked him.
Bam, finally, tore off his mask and tried to push himself up to stand, but could barely get above a sitting position. Even from beside the camera, you could see the tear tracks staining his cheeks. Had you ever seen Bam cry before? Maybe when he was drunk, but they all cried when they were drunk.
“Are you crying?”
“I think he’s hurt,” Ryan pointed out, though you were sure they were all hurt.
“Can we get Bam some water? Maybe a Shirley Temple?” Johnny looked right at you, and you took that as permission to finally walk into the shot. You carried your medical bag with you, and a bottle of water, and with Johnny’s help, managed to crouch beside Bam. He’d gotten himself into a sitting position, finally, but he was still crying, and every time he took a sip of water, he started to cough.
You waited until he finished the water to ease him onto his feet, and when he was up, you forced the three men to show you the damage.
“They all went for my stomach,” Ryan told you as he lifted his shirt. He was right, the bullets had created a smattering of nasty, red welts across his stomach, and you gently felt around them to see how raised they were. He winced at every touch. There wasn’t much you could do, but you handed him an ice pack and told him to keep icing the welts for now.
You turned to your husband, and he smiled sheepishly at you. Most likely, because he could see you were unimpressed by the welts that had risen along his inner thighs.
“See, they only got me in the legs.”
“Did they?” You lifted his arm to show off the welts all along his hands and arms. You were grateful, though; otherwise, his face would have been absolutely destroyed by the number of balls that had struck his arm.
“Did any get me in the face?” You shook your head, and he breathed a sigh of relief. You couldn’t believe that had been his biggest worry this entire time, and as you handed him the ice packs to help soothe the welts, you reminded him that he could have worn a mask, too. “Clearly, I didn’t need it,” he teased, leaning down into your face so you could see that his was unscathed. You flicked his nose to get him to move out of the way, and he pouted, though he knew you were too deep into medic mode to laugh at his antics. Bam’s crying had switched on the side of you that you’d thought you left behind in the hospital, the woman who could drown out the laughter and the noise to focus on the task at hand. The side of you that had forgotten how to have fun, that came home stressed and argumentative, that hated a day off because it meant having to sit in your own thoughts. That was one of the reasons you’d left it all behind to become a set medic.
You lifted Bam’s shirt, and the whistle that flew from between your teeth made the rest of the crew laugh. His were somehow worse than Johnny and Ryan’s combined. Welts that were such a deep red they looked like they were bleeding ran along his stomach and lower waistline. One had sprung up right in the middle of the tattoo just above his pelvis.
“You got hit in the stomach pretty good,” Johnny said, and then laughed so loud you were pretty sure the pain had turned him manic.
You iced Bam’s welts for him, and when you were sure it would stop the swelling for now, you slathered the witch hazel stick you’d brought with you over his welts, then made Johnny and Ryan stand still while you did the same to them. Johnny stood as still as he could, even though you being so close to his thighs did make his dick twitch very obviously in your face, and attempted to be the perfect patient he had proven himself to be over and over again. He didn’t even try to make a joke, much to the amusement of the rest of the crew watching you slather witch hazel over his welts. He just watched you work like he’d never seen anyone so beautiful, with your hair starting to slip from its updo, with his cardigan falling off your shoulder, with your tongue poking out the corner of your mouth as you concentrated.
When you were finally finished, Johnny turned to the camera. “Hey, is this okay?” he asked, gesturing to his face. Rick threw him a thumbs-up, and he grinned. “Then we’re good.”
It was enough to make you laugh again. Of all the worries he could have had, of course, that was the thing lingering in his mind. Not how long the welts would last, not if he would have any scars, not if there were any internal injuries. All he cared about was that he still looked good enough for the cameras. (For you, but that was the quiet bit he didn’t trust himself to say out loud). He looked pretty pleased to bring you back to yourself, and his arms twined around your waist to pull you close enough to rest your foreheads together. You made sure not to touch the welts on his arms.
“There’s my girl,” he said, and kissed you gently. “Wasn’t sure I’d get you back for another hour. Went into nurse mode pretty quickly.”
“Trust you to bring me back, Knoxville.”
“Gotta keep my angel tethered to Earth, don’t I?”
You were still laughing as he kissed you again, and for once, you didn’t really care about the crew surrounding you. You didn’t care about the cameras, or Jeff, or even the fake retching noises Bam and Dave were making as you allowed Johnny to deepen the kiss just enough to remind you that he wasn’t that badly hurt.
There was a reason you left the hospital. And there was a reason why you’d never say no to working on a Jackass movie, even if you were bursting at the seams, even if every day you started to feel heavier and heavier.
Because there was nowhere else you laughed more.
Because there was nobody who could make you laugh as much as Johnny Knoxville.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
The arcade was bouncing when you arrived.
It was your bi-weekly date night, dedicated solely to you and Johnny, where you didn’t talk about work, about stunts, about the sets you were working on. You focused on each other, on just getting to be together without interruption, and like you always ended up doing, you found yourselves at your favourite arcade. Your date nights always ended like this. Even if you’d just been to the cinema near your house that only showed classic movies, or you’d gotten dressed up for a fancy dinner in the kind of establishment neither of you felt entirely comfortable in, or you scored tickets to one of the local band’s concerts. You always ended up here, at the 24-hour arcade with the acne-ridden teenagers and young couples and gamer boys.
There was always a stale scent of sweat clinging to the air, probably because of all the people crammed into the place, that was sometimes masked by the yeasty beer everyone was drinking, or the body sprays that the teenagers used far too much of, or the oddly metallic scent that the flickering neon signs emitted when you stepped too close. By the hand, Johnny led you past the rows and rows of enticing claw machines – that you often spent a fortune on trying to win a teddy just for the bragging rights – and the coin pushers you had spent hours at one night just because you could. The lights were always too bright in here, but you liked the way they flickered like no one cared to see if they were working, and you liked all the noise that crammed into the space. The shouting of kids enjoying themselves, the bleep-bloop of the old-school arcade games, the revving of the racing games, and exaggerated explosions of the shooters, someone cursing as they lost again, someone cheering as they won, the ticket machine eating up the tickets. You loved the feeling of slippery, cold coins in your palms, of slamming on the buttons as you got too into it, the squeezing of the rifle trigger, the push and pull of every game.
There was a reason you both kept coming back.
You didn’t know if you could just chalk it up to nostalgia, that you spent your childhood in arcades just like this with your friends so being back here was comforting, or if it was because Johnny was right there with you, just as involved, just as lost in the sights and sounds. Slamming his hand against the side of the Pac Man machine in frustration, pressing his face up against the glass of a claw machine because he just had to get you that Kermit teddy, drinking a red slushie so you could make purple when you drank a blue one, and he kissed you with tongue.
“Ready for another round?” Johnny asked once you reached the air hockey machine.
“The question is–” You leaned against the machine, on your usual side with the red pusher. Johnny always played with the blue pusher. “–are you ready to get beat again?”
“No way. No way!” He slipped a coin through the slot and moved into place just as the puck appeared below his knee. “This time, angel, you’re toast.”
“Babe,” you tutted. “I always win.” Which was true. You always won at air hockey. But he always won at the zombie shooting game, so you felt pretty equal.
He slammed the puck hard with his pusher, and it pinged around the table, whizzing with exaggerated effort. It was a little harder to lean with your round bump getting in the way, but you still managed to block your goal and send the puck careening back over to him. He wasn’t as quick as you – he never was, and you liked to brag about it, of course – and the puck went straight through the tiny goal on his side of the table. 1-0 already. You kept going, getting increasingly faster, increasingly sloppier, increasingly more annoyed when the other person scored, but by the end of your first match, it was 10-4 to you, and you danced around as if you didn’t always beat him.
In the arcade, it was easy to pretend nobody was watching.
You played again, and again, until Johnny was sick of losing and got you to move to the car racing. You could never quite get the hang of the steering and relied too much on the booster button, but at least this time, when your husband won, you could blame your bump for the interference. He didn’t fall for it, but he did crouch to press a kiss just above your belly button.
“Keep interfering,” he whispered against your skin, and you bit back your laugh, stroking the hair from his face. He always had surprisingly soft hair for how spiky it appeared. “It helps daddy win.”
At least now you had an excuse for losing.
You tried the shooters he was always better at, then the dance mat you had been competing on since you were tall enough, and ended up at the basketball hoops that you were equally as bad at and which made you both laugh so hard you probably caught the attention of the entire arcade. Nobody bothered you here. If anyone recognised Johnny – which you were pretty sure they did, because you’d caught them staring often enough – they never came up to him, though he wouldn’t have scorned them if they did. He loved fans, he loved signing autographs, and he loved getting to talk about Jackass with people who seemed to genuinely enjoy it. But the other patrons of the arcade must have sensed it was date night and kept their distance.
You were always grateful that you had this little place to go to when the world was starting to feel too big, and the baby was starting to feel too close, and adulthood was starting to feel too real.
Just as you were about to waste too much time and money on the claw machines, you caught the tail-end of a familiar laugh, and you spun around before you could think to ignore it. Johnny must have caught it too, for he glanced at you, then back to where the sound came from, expressive eyebrows drawn together almost comically.
“Don’t tell me that’s–”
Steve-O and Chris rounded the corner, pushing and shoving each other. When you’d mentioned the arcade to them, randomly, one day, you hadn’t expected them to actually come here too. Especially not on date night.
“They haven’t spotted us yet,” you whispered back, “we have time to run.”
But Johnny still had money in the claw machine, and he was adamant he was winning this pink teddy bear for your baby. “If we just turn our backs, they won’t even notice us.”
“Smart.”
It was, unsurprisingly, not smart.
When the claw dropped the teddy, only inches from the tube, Johnny let out a too-loud fuck that caught the attention of the two men who would have walked past otherwise. They skipped over, bright and bouncy the way they always were, and slung their arms over your shoulder.
“Why if it isn’t our favourite medic,” sang Chris, pressing a sloppy kiss to your cheek. Steve-O copied him, but your arms were trapped between their bodies, and you couldn’t reach up to wipe the saliva from your face.
“What are you doing here, favourite medic?”
“It’s date night.”
“Date night?” they echoed, then both burst into laughter, teasing you both about how cute your date night was. Johnny shot them a tired look as the teddy was freed from the claw once more.
“I’m trying to win something over here.”
And that was enough to have all three men gathered around the claw machine, their words jumbling as they tried to give tips on how best to win this teddy bear for your unborn daughter. Closer to me. No, go to the right. No, no, that’s nowhere close enough. You need to grab the belly, not the head. You’re way off. Oh fuck man, that was so close. You just leaned on the machine next to you and watched them, the easy way they fell into familiar behaviours, how much they felt like a little family. Even if date night had been crashed, at least it was by two men you could always rely on to make you laugh. Two men who your daughter was going to grow up calling Uncle because they were always right there, trying to win her teddies from claw machines, and promising to look after her so you and Johnny could continue your date night tradition that always ended right here, in this arcade, where laughter was painted into the walls.
You fell asleep with that pink teddy between you.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
For the first time ever, Johnny was telling you not to do something.
And he was probably right. After all, the other women in your antenatal class had stopped working the week before their pregnancies, and their work didn’t exactly involve being around anacondas and men throwing themselves into dangerous activities just for the fun of it. You’d told Johnny that you didn’t want to sit at home knowing he was going to enter a ball pit with an anaconda; otherwise, you’d stress out too much instead of relaxing like he wanted, and left out just how much you wanted to spend all day with him.
The closer you got to your due date, the needier you became. All day, every day, you wanted to be with your husband. When he was cooking, you had to be in the kitchen too, even if the smell made you a little nauseous. When he was showering, you wanted to shower with him, just to feel him massaging the shampoo into your scalp. When he was trying to write something for the movie, you were right there just to watch him work, with a mug of decaf tea and your feet in his lap.
Johnny wasn’t exactly happy about you still working, but he stopped arguing. He knew he’d never win. So, he kept quiet for the entire drive to the set, fingers tightening around the steering wheel, only allowing the radio to cut through the silence he’d set. You didn’t try to fill it either. For once, he knew how you felt, always worried about his safety before every stunt, always worried that you’d be leaving the set in an ambulance instead of the car. And, as you’d reminded him that morning over breakfast, you weren’t the one doing anything dangerous. You were just watching like you always did.
Unlike Johnny, who was probably about to be crushed by an anaconda.
“How’d Knoxville convince you to come along?” Ryan asked as you helped wrap black electrical tape around his wrists. He and Wee-Man were joining Johnny in the anaconda-infested ball pit, and they’d decided to protect their veins in the stupidest way you’d ever heard. You were just glad Ed had electrical tape in his backpack for some reason.
“Oh, he didn’t want me anywhere near this today. He wanted me at home.”
“No way, dude. He gets seriously freaked whenever you’re not around.”
You blinked up at Ryan. You wished you had a video to show him just how adamant Johnny was that you stay at home today. It was the worst argument you’d had in the four years you’d known each other, and it was clear Johnny still wasn’t happy with you being here.
“I’m being serious,” Ryan insisted. You used your teeth to tear the strip of tape around his wrist. “I’ve never seen him like this. He seriously worries about you. He's always talking about practicing with the car seat, or diapers, whatever. He's been writing down all the tips the other dads have been giving him. He's gone crazy.”
Your heart quickened. Nobody had dared mention anything like that around Johnny before, not when he could laugh it off before you could let the emotion swirl in your gut. You knew he loved you – he made sure to tell you so as often as he could – but this was more than just words he could whisper in your ear to placate you. This was him showing the rest of the cast and crew that this little family you were creating was the most important thing in the world to him. This was his way of showing his true feelings without having to say them.
You twisted your head just enough to find him across the room, getting a sailor hat fitted to his head. He was already watching you. You could always find those deep brown eyes in a room, always trained on you, always softening as soon as your gazes met. You thanked Ryan, but your attention was trained solely on your husband, already crossing the room towards you. You met in the middle and smiled when he helped free the hair that had gotten trapped under your necklace, fingers grazing the top of your spine. It was a delicious feeling, the type that made your entire body shiver and flame.
“Don’t get yourself killed in there,” you warned him.
Johnny held out his wrists like you were about to arrest him. “Wouldn’t dream of it, angel.”
You giggled and stepped closer, as close as you could get without actually treading on his toes. For once, he did not stay still to let you work, instead using the opportunity of having you this close to run his fingers through your hair, to nuzzle his nose against the side of your head, to splatter kisses across your shoulders while you giggled and tried to push him away. Maybe he was feeling just as needy as you were. Maybe there was all this tension because you both just wanted the other person right there without coming right out and saying it.
“Don’t like arguing with you,” Johnny mumbled against your temple as you tore the end of the tape off with your teeth and fixed it into place. He could probably feel your bashful smile against his wrist. “You were right, feel better with you right here where I can see you.”
“That’s how I feel too. Like being able to keep my eye on you, Knoxville.”
He laughed, loud and carefree, and it was enough to quell all the tension that had filled the car that morning. He kissed you like he didn’t care that all the crew had gathered to watch the stunt. Now you could watch your husband climb into a ball pit they were going to hide an anaconda inside of, and you could laugh it off with the rest of the guys, instead of stewing in the righteousness of wanting to feel right.
“Hello, I’m Johnny Knoxville, and this is the Anaconda Ball Pit.” Wee Man, in the blink of an eye, punched Johnny in the balls. You bit back your amusement as he doubled over, cupping himself and wincing in pain. “Fuck. I have on a cup, and that still hurts.” In retaliation, he kicked Wee Man in the balls, and laughter tumbled around the room. Almost all the time, Johnny and Wee Man were trying to punch each other’s dicks, you were surprised they still worked.
Manny Puig, the crew’s animal handler whom you’d met for the first time while working on Wildboyz, lifted two anacondas into the ball pit. The rest of the boys had gathered around to watch while still being on camera, but Bam slowly inched to stand behind Ehren, as if he’d be able to keep Bam away from the snakes if they came slithering over. The crew had already gotten Bam with multiple snake-related pranks throughout filming, so you could understand his fear. He was probably half-expecting this skit to turn on him any minute.
“Anacondas are experts in camouflage. They’re ambush hunters.”
“So what does that mean?” Johnny asked. You were surprised they hadn’t gotten Chris and Steve-O to join him in the ball pit instead, but they were probably sick of the sight of snakes after all that filming for their own show.
“They surprise you.”
“I dunno if I’m gonna be that surprised.”
“You gotta catch these guys,” joked Chris, “they tried to kill JLo and Ice Cube.”
It took a minute or two for the guys to get into it, but then Johnny reached to pick up the anaconda, and it instantly bit him, and they all started laughing. Like they weren’t in a silly ball pit with a deadly animal. Like Johnny wasn’t bleeding. Like this wasn’t any more dangerous than just jumping off of roofs. Every time Johnny grabbed the anaconda, it would reach around and bite him. You watched through your fingers, unable to tear your gaze away from the blood dripping down his arms, over his biceps, twining through his fingers. The anaconda trapped Ryan’s legs with its tail and started squeezing, but Johnny managed to hold its head up to the camera, his smirk far too smug for a man within biting distance of a giant snake.
Though you couldn’t deny that the smugness of his smirk mixed with the blood dripping down his arms was sexy. It was doing something to you that you definitely didn’t want to admit but that you’d probably let slip that night, and that your husband would keep bringing up over and over again just because he could. Just because he liked making you blush and whine for him.
“Alright, we seized the snake–”
Wee Man screeched as he realised they had forgotten about the second snake.
You laughed so hard you were sure you’d peed. The wetness trickled down your leg, and you’d never been more grateful to be on a set where everyone had peed themselves at least once. Except it felt like it was never going to stop. Just a constant wetness that kept coming, while the pressure against your pubic bone that you’d been feeling for days now felt altogether heavier.
You stepped out of the puddle you created, and it was as if the truth had grabbed you by the shoulders and started shaking you.
“PJ,” you shouted, above all the laughter. Heads twisted towards you. You only ever called him PJ on set when you were worried about his safety. He vaulted over the edge of the ball pit, blood still dripping down his arm, to reach you. The snakes were forgotten about.
“Angel, you okay?”
“My water broke.”
You’d never seen a group of men panic as if they shared one brain cell and couldn’t quite decide who got to use it. Jeff drove you to the hospital in Johnny’s car because there was no way your husband could drive while he was that pale and had also lost a lot of blood. You weren’t sure if the rest of the boys followed in the crew vans, and you weren’t really sure that you cared. The entire thing was a blur of hands and voices and pain, but as you were pushing, you could so clearly see the ball pit, and the blood smeared on Johnny’s arms, and those stupid sailor hats they were wearing.
“What about the anacondas?” you asked your husband, and he was still laughing as Ramona Clapp took her first breath.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
Hi!
What an insane amount of love the first part of this fic received. I was so not expecting it to reach so many people, so I have to thank you all for all the comments, reblogs, and likes you've given it. Thank you <3
Also, I genuinely think Johnny Knoxville is the peak of male sexiness in Jackass 2, but I couldn't just write 'Johnny looked sexy' so have 11k words of that instead.
Also creating a tag list for anyone who seemed to want more parts:
→ Summary: Jackass: The Movie needed another set medic to keep the boys from accidentally getting themselves killed. And you signed up because you needed to step out of your comfort zone and escape the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Except it leads you right to Johnny Knoxville, who is clearly only flirting with you as some sort of prank for the movie. Isn’t he?
→ Word Count: 13.3k
→ Multi Chapter
Jackass: The Movie
-> next chapter
You never should have signed up for this movie.
There were countless movies needing set medics in lovely, warm Los Angeles. Big movies full of Hollywood stars, with a proper catering department and assistants running around wanting to buy everyone coffee. Sets that you had been used to, where the majority of your job was dealing with heat exhaustion and dehydration. Yet here you were in Pennsylvania, freezing your ass off for some stupid stuntmen you briefly remember your roommate watching on TV. You weren’t even sure they were qualified stuntmen – just a bunch of stupid men who’d gotten quasi-famous from their MTV slapstick reality show.
You let your roommate, Kristeen, talk you into this when you first saw the listing in the office. You’d only taken a copy because you recognised the name from hearing “Hi, I’m Johnny Knoxville and welcome to Jackass,” so many times on those Sunday evenings when she co-opted the TV. But Kristy had called the number on your behalf, not wanting you to miss out on such a rare opportunity. She claimed that you being such a creature of habit was bad for you. That you had to get out there because you never did location shoots, instead opting to stay on set in Los Angeles whenever you could. Well, you were certainly out there now.
Out there and absolutely, fucking freezing.
It must have been below 30 degrees, and the coat you brought with you was barely keeping out the chill. You were used to Los Angeles, to it never really going below 50, to not needing more than your favourite pea coat that stopped just above your thighs. That pea coat was doing absolutely nothing for you. You’d tugged a hat down low over your head, shoved on some thick gloves you’d borrowed from April Margera when she noticed your lack of warm clothing, and even gone so far as to ask for the extra hoodies Bam Margera and Brandon DiCamillo had brought with them. And still, you were shivering.
Johnny Knoxville and Ryan Dunn crashed their golf cart through one of the plastic animals set up around the mini-golf course. You winced as the pink flamingo went flying through the air and their golf cart wobbled, fearing that it would tip over and ultimately crush them beneath the weight. You’d found, in the first week or so of filming, that the boys didn’t really care if they got hurt. As long as it was funny. As long as the camera caught it. There were always cameras rolling, even when you were eating from one of the food trucks, just in case someone did something stupid enough to be worthy of being shown in this movie they were making.
You didn’t really get it, but you were getting paid to stand here and watch them crash golf carts into one another, so you went along with it anyway.
“We’re going back to the Margera's after we film this, right?” you asked Jeff Tremaine, the director and one of the creators of the original show, through chattering teeth. He chuckled, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his thick coat. Yours were stuffed under your armpits, though you were sure they were about to fall off.
“You feeling the cold?”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t.” You stamped your heavy boots against the frost-tipped grass, hoping the movement would spike some heat through your veins. Not really. The chill had already gotten in, and no amount of layers would help rid you of it. You just hoped April would let you drink all her coffee until your body returned to normal. “I’m used to LA. Why did you decide to film here first? In February? When it’s fucking freezing.”
Jeff laughed loudly. Out there on the mini-golf course, Bam and Brandon almost threw Rake Yohn off the plastic dinosaur he was pretending to ride. “Easier to get all the Pennsylvania stuff out of the way before we go to Japan. Even if it is fucking freezing.”
We did not include you. There was no reason to pay for you to go all the way to Japan when they weren’t going to be doing anything dangerous. Apparently. You were being left in Pennsylvania to look after Bam. Johnny laughed when you’d pouted about it in Jeff’s office and said: “Don’t worry, angel, we’ll be back trying to kill ourselves before you can miss us.”
“Should have brought Ed here and taken me to Japan.”
Jeff just laughed again and slung an arm over your shoulder to try to warm you up without saying as much. You’d known the Jackass crew for just under a month, and they were probably the most welcoming crew you’d been involved in, making you feel immediately invited under everybody’s wing to make your job somehow easier. One of the other medics, Ed, had taken you to meet everyone one by one, to high-five the boom mic and rig operators, to fist bump the guys that kept the cameras rolling, to shake hands with the legal team, to hug all the cast who acted as if you’d always been around. You couldn’t complain about any of them.
Except for Johnny Knoxville.
You could hear his laughter as they drove over too-deep dips in the golf course. You couldn’t believe the carts hadn’t tipped over yet, rocking back and forth, scuffed to hell, covered in broken pieces of plastic animals. It wasn’t like he didn’t make you feel welcome – rather, it was like he went out of his way to be too familiar with you. He was flirty, and loud, and touched you when you were least expecting it. Helping tug the hair out of the collar of your shirt, fingers grazing the bare skin of your neck, and giggling when you shivered under his touch. Leaning his arm on the top of your head because he always stood way taller than you. You were honestly surprised he hadn’t jumped at the chance to offer his hoodie when you complained about being cold, especially when he always slipped into his Southern gentleman role when you were around.
You expected everything he did was a prank you were supposed to laugh about later.
“Would April be mad if I drank all her coffee?”
Before Jeff could reply, you watched the golf cart flip over. Ryan had been driving too fast over the short hill, and it had tipped as it bounced, sending him flying out of the driver’s seat. Johnny was stuck inside, his body tilted at an odd angle, his legs above his head. Exactly what you feared would happen. You raced over, Jeff on your heels, the chill forgotten as you heard people shouting not to move him, not to touch him. You still felt too far away, the frost slowing you down unless you slipped, and by the time you reached the tipped-over golf cart, Johnny was groaning.
“You dead, Knoxville?” Jeff asked.
“Not yet.”
The damp grass soaked through the knees of your black jeans as you reached out to touch the back of Johnny’s neck. He winced and gingerly cranked an eye open, then the second one, and you were loath to admit he had very pretty eyes up close.
“You an angel?”
“If this is heaven, send me to hell. It’ll be warmer.”
His wince cut off his chuckle. You got him to move his feet, then his fingers, and since everything seemed to be moving correctly, you got Jeff to help you move Johnny into a seated position. He blinked slowly, dazed, and you held the pen light you always kept in your pocket up to his eyes, checking his vision wasn’t impaired. He was the perfect patient while you slogged through all the tests to make sure his neck wasn’t injured, that he hadn’t broken any limbs, that he was in no severe distress. He was quiet, only wincing when you touched a spot that would most likely bruise in the next few days, and never argued with a single order you gave him.
Quite frankly, he almost seemed to like being ordered about.
“Does it still hurt?”
“Just the usual pain, nothing killer.”
“Good. I think you’ll be fine. Here–” You held your hand out, and Jeff slammed a bottle of water into it, which you then handed to Johnny. “–keep drinking fluids. I think you’re just a little dazed, but it doesn’t look like a concussion or anything. No neck injury either.”
“Are you done, then?” he asked after he gulped down some water. He blinked up at you and purposely jutted out his bottom lip in a pout. As if he wanted you to keep running your hands all over his body. “I don’t get a kiss to make it feel better?”
“I wouldn’t dare. That’s a totally experimental procedure I’m just not comfortable doing out in the field.”
Johnny laughed. That loud laugh of his that seemed to ring right from the depths of his stomach. You had to admit it had a way of infecting the people around him, including you, and you struggled to stifle the smile that started to break through. He tugged on a loose strand of your hair.
“Thank God you’re around to patch us up, angel.”
You twisted away before he noticed the blush that swallowed up your face. He would have just laughed louder, alerted everybody’s attention to the fact that calling you angel was enough to make your face such a pretty colour, and it’s all you would ever hear for the rest of filming. Scrambling away from him, you suddenly felt the chill of your damp knees after having kneeled in the frost for so long, and you knew you’d never be able to get rid of it until you stood beneath the steaming hot shower of your hotel room. Even then, you were sure you’d still feel it, like an itch under your skin, the inkling of cold you couldn’t forget.
You were still shivering as you helped pack the gear away into the two crew vans. Rick Kosick, one of the cameramen, noticed your shaking hands and handed over the small hand warmer he’d been using throughout the shoot. It had cooled a little, but it was still warmer than the air, and you held it between your gloved hands as you scrambled into the backseat of the van. You huddled in the corner, hands against your chest like the small hand warmer could spread heat throughout your body, and were incredibly thankful when another, warmer body pressed against your side.
“You’ll heat up eventually,” Johnny said, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you closer into him.
“Eventually is too far away.”
Another laugh, and you had to turn your head away, so he couldn’t see the way you blushed so easily at something as simple as a warm sound. He played with your hair as if he didn’t even realise he was doing it, while he leaned forward to talk to Bam sitting in the row in front. Ryan, next to Bam, turned at just the right moment to catch your eye and wink, and then he twisted back around to continue his conversation with Rake. You didn’t have time to question the wink, and you didn’t particularly want to pay close attention to the way that Johnny was twirling your hair around his finger, nor the way it made your stomach twist just enough to be noticeable. So, you stared out the window and leaned into his warmth, and tried to think about the hot shower waiting for you at the motel instead of how solid he felt beneath you.
If this was a prank, you wondered where they hid all the cameras.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
When the boys got back from Japan, the rest of you could return to business as usual in Los Angeles.
You flew back from Pennsylvania with Bam, leaving the rest of his buddies in his hometown, and had never been more grateful to have a roommate than the moment you got home to find Kristy had left a welcome home gift waiting for you in your bedroom. A new coconut-scented candle to light, a collection of face masks to relax with, bath salts, and a bottle of wine to crack open. You spent just over an hour in the bath that night, drinking wine straight from the bottle, listening to your favourite music on the CD player you tugged through, and letting the face mask soak into your skin and get rid of all the blemishes from travelling. By the time you returned to set on Monday, you were thoroughly relaxed.
The Jackass crew undid all your hard work by midday.
You were pretty sure they enjoyed causing you stress. Half of their pranks were just their way of trying to send you over the edge with worry while they laughed them all off. Renting cars just to crash them, using Bam and Ryan as human bowling balls, constantly trying to crush each other’s testicles in more dangerous and creative ways. You’d slowly started getting used to it, but it didn’t stop you thinking the worst was going to happen every time you heard one of them cackling in the distance.
In the rare chance you got a moment to yourself, you always brought a book with you to set.
“Coffee?”
You twisted your head up, letting your thumb hold your place in your book, to find Johnny standing over you with two coffees in hand. The shitty coffees that came from the huge urn in the craft tent that you all gulped down, even though it was too bitter and no amount of creamer could mask the taste.
“Sure, thanks.” You took it from him and smiled after your first sip. He remembered your creamer. You didn’t think Johnny had taken any notice of the coffee you drank.
Johnny took the camp seat next to you, pulling it close enough that your knees knocked together. He just had long legs. He was bound to do that all the time. “Hey, nice shirt.” He nodded to the random t-shirt you’d thrown on in a rush that morning – you were never late to anything, but your clock decided to skip your alarm entirely, and you were forced to rely on Kristy – and you glanced down at it to check what it was. The shirt you’d gotten from the last Smashing Pumpkins concert you went to at the Virgin Megastore a couple of years ago, when they played Tonight, Tonight, and you cried, because that was your favourite song. You weren’t going to tell Johnny that, though.
“Thank you. I saw them a couple of years ago–”
“At the Virgin Megastore? Yeah. I was there. It was good. Cried like a fucking baby when they sang Tonight, Tonight. I love that song.”
You hid your smile in your coffee cup and dropped your eyes to the fading blue Woody Woodpecker shirt he wore. Everything you learned about Johnny Knoxville surprised you more and more, though there was a certain warmth that spread through your chest when you realised you weren’t so different, after all. That the same song could move you both to tears. That you stood in the same room and let the same music reach you.
“You know.” He scrunched up his face like he was just remembering something. “I went home with some girl that night. She looked an awful lot like you–”
“Shut up, Knoxville,” you laughed, reaching over to smack your book against his knee. You’d lost the page, but you’d find it again. It wasn’t the first time you’d read The Joy Luck Club, anyway. His laughter rang around you, loud and unrelenting, confident in every little thing he did.
Johnny was an easy person to get to know. He could talk about himself for hours, not in the way you usually found obnoxious, but in the way that asking the right question could set him off on a tangent with a million different storylines, finally reaching one conclusion. He’d laugh off difficult topics to keep the tension from growing and make sure nobody was sitting bored out of their minds. Every break you had, he’d find you. He’d ask you questions you couldn’t wiggle your way out of, and involve you in conversations he was having with the guys even if you were standing on the other side of the set. Johnny never let you be bored, mostly because he didn’t like being bored. You were still waiting for his attention to be one big prank that they’d use in the final scene of the movie.
And he told stories pretty well.
“He did not!”
Johnny nodded wildly, laughter trickling from his mouth. Even you couldn’t hold back your giggles. “Hand on my heart, I ain’t joking, angel. Dave put the muscle stimulator on his gooch.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why do we do anything around here?”
You doubled over with laughter, somehow able to perfectly picture a completely nude Dave England with a muscle stimulator stuck to his perineum. Already, you’d seen all the guys naked at least once. It was something you’d had to grow comfortable with. Almost always, one of them was stark naked for one reason or another, usually a prank, usually because they just liked whirling their dicks around and laughing about it. You’d stopped blushing after the first five times you’d walked in on one of them with their cock and balls facing you.
“Wanna guess what Chris did?”
“Oh, God. I don’t think I need to guess.” You laughed so hard your hand flew out to keep you from falling out of the camp chair. When it landed on Johnny’s knee, you didn’t even notice, too busy giggling, too busy having fun to feel embarrassed. And Johnny didn’t shake you off. If anything, he leaned closer, like he couldn’t quite get enough of your touch.
It was always the same after a stunt, too. He’d lean into your touch even when you were focusing on the bruises blossoming across his chest, and you never noticed the soft way his expression crumbled as he watched you.
“Right on his balls.”
“No!”
“And I’m pretty sure he liked it.”
With your laughter joining in the air, loud and easy to get lost in, Johnny curled his hand around yours on his knee. You noticed – how could you not? – but you didn’t pull away, just continued to laugh, just continued to lean closer, and enjoy this rare moment of peace with Johnny Knoxville. You dropped your head onto the tip of his shoulder as you tried to catch your breath, and for a moment, it was like you’d been doing this forever. Like you and Johnny had been laughing together since childhood. It was easy. It was nice.
You’d stopped expecting a camera to appear out of nowhere to capture the moment your forehead touched his shoulder. They were all too focused on whatever stupid shit Steve-O and Wee Man were laughing about in the distance, and you didn’t have to worry that the way Johnny smiled down at you was just a joke.
It didn’t feel like a joke, anyway.
You lifted your head from his shoulder, and you were close, so much closer than you expected to be. He smelled like bitter coffee, sweat, and the last remnants of cigarette smoke, and usually you’d have cringed away from any man who smelled like that, but it surprisingly suited him. And it made you want to lean even closer, even though it didn’t seem possible to get any closer. You’d tangled your feet under the camp chairs, and you were pretty much holding hands, and as the laughter drifted away in the air, you realised this was the closest you’d ever been to him without an injury as an excuse.
“You know, I never noticed how pretty your eyes are until now,” he said. All you could manage in return was a nervous giggle, the smallest quirk of your lip that forced his gaze down to your mouth.
You had a strict no-fraternising-at-work policy.
You were most likely going to break it any day now. Even if it was a prank, it’d be worth it just to have Johnny kiss you right now. To have him lean forward and curl his hand around your jaw, to press his lips to yours and steal your breath away, to have you in the strange way you’d been dreaming about for weeks now.
“Medic!” You heard over the noise, and the moment dissipated in a breath, running down the drain as you and Johnny leaned away from each other. You grabbed your backpack and raced away, before either of you could apologise, before you could really feel the sudden swell of disappointment trying to break through your chest.
Johnny Knoxville watched you walk away.
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This was an incredibly stupid idea.
Which you had told Johnny over, and over, and over again on the drive over to the shooting range that A.L.S. Technologies used to test their products. One of which they were testing on Johnny that very day. He just laughed off every single one of your concerns, and you should have felt better that he wasn’t worried, that he was going to take it all with a smile on his face, but you could just imagine the injuries a projectile could cause.
He was going to get himself killed.
“All right.” Johnny rocked on his heels in front of the camera. You stood back with some of the other crew members, and you seemed to be the only one feeling tense. They must have been used to seeing how much the cast could cheat death. “We’re here in the valley today to do our own little riot control test. This is George Hruska.” Johnny motioned to the man standing next to him. “All right, George, what do you do and what are we doing here today?”
George Hruska looked a little awkward on camera. “Well, I’m Vice President of Operations with A.L.S. Technologies. We manufacture less-lethal ammunition. We’re one of the top manufacturing companies in the United States. And we’re going to shoot you with one of our projectiles.” You flinched. You could already see the bruising it would cause, in the best-case scenario. Beyond that, it could be lethal. “It’s called the Pen-Prevent. It’s a 40-gram, tail-stabilised bag. It’ll be travelling about 250 feet per second.”
“Is that lethal?”
“It’s considered less lethal.”
The cameras kept rolling as George helped Johnny into a chest protector. The Velcro made that awful scratchy noise you hated as he attached the sides, leaving just enough of his t-shirt showing around his belly. Some of the crew laughed as Johnny stepped into the protective diaper that’d protect his cock and balls from the projectile, but your humour got caught in your throat. 250 feet per second was fast. Fast enough to damage some internal organs. Before taking this job, the worst thing you dealt with was a broken ankle after a stuntman fell in the wrong place.
“So, this morning I thought I was taking it in the chest with the beanbag projectile,” Johnny said to the camera. “But George and his company said ‘no way’. ‘Cause if it hits me in the heart, I’m pretty much done with.”
George drew a target on the sliver of Johnny’s white t-shirt that showed between the thick pieces of protective gear. You didn’t like that it was drawn right over his navel. You didn’t like that you had to stand there and watch all this go down.
“So we want to take every single precaution necessary to help protect your vital organs.”
“Where are my intestines? Are they in that area?”
“I think so.”
“Awesome.”
You groaned. “Not awesome.” Eyes flicked to you. Usually, you were one of the quieter members of the crew. You got on well enough with all of them, though you weren’t one of the ones to speak out. You usually just watched all the silly pranks and stunts go down with a laugh, and they never made you get involved. You’d only thrown up once, unlike Lance, who you were sure must have been sick every single day since you’d met him. He wasn’t good with any of the bodily fluid pranks the boys liked doing.
“If you perforate your intestines, you’ll need surgery,” you told Johnny, planting your hands on your hips. The action made the hem of your long-sleeved shirt ride up, and you caught the way Johnny’s eyes flicked to the sliver of skin showing. Just the briefest moment. “And I’ll ask them to open you up so you’ll always have a scar to remind you of your stupidity.”
When Johnny smirked, you were sure the cameras would have caught the way it made you feel. The way it made your stomach flip and your body suddenly feel too warm. The way it would be burned into your brain as you tried to fall asleep that night.
“It’s so sexy when you use big words I don’t know.”
You jabbed him in the ribs with your elbow when he got close enough, and he doubled over, the breath knocked out of him by the suddenness of your hit. “Imagine that. But ten times worse.”
“Don’t you have a code against stuff like that?”
You shrugged off Johnny’s question as he leaned against the wall beside you. Even slouched, he was taller than you. He was taller than most people, you realised fairly quickly, towering over everyone and never trying to appear smaller, never trying to fold in on himself so that people would stop looking at him. Johnny didn’t mind being taller than everyone. Actually, he seemed to enjoy leaning on everyone’s heads. Including yours. He let his elbow rest on your crown, and when you tried to push him off, he just put it right back, laughing to himself, unbothered by your annoyance. So, you just left him be and watched George take a practice shot against the paper target. The beanbag shot a straight hole through the target, smacking against the wall behind it with a heavy thud that made your stomach churn. You felt sick just watching, but when Johnny’s arm slid off your head, you noticed how much paler he looked. It was as if the reality of the stunt had just hit him.
“Should I remind you how much of an idiot you are?” you asked, just as he pushed himself away from the wall.
“No need, angel, I’m fully aware.”
In his defence, Johnny didn’t even flinch when the gunshot reverberated around the room. Not that he really had time to flinch with the speed the beanbag went flying towards him, hurtling into the side of his stomach and sending him down to the ground with an aching groan. It was the first time nobody had held you back from racing forward, and you were just thankful that Johnny was still able to roll around. At least it wasn’t completely lethal.
He whimpered as you reached out towards him, fingers grazing the spot the beanbag hit. You ignored how much you liked that sound. It was definitely not what you should have been thinking about, not when you could see that Johnny was totally blinded by the pain.
“Angel, that you?”
“You’re not in heaven yet, Knoxville.”
And despite the pain bouncing around his body like he’d just been hit by a twelve-ton truck, Johnny Knoxville still managed a smile.
You checked him over as much as you could, and when he was able to sit up without fainting or vomiting, you checked him again, pretty certain that no vital organs had been damaged. Once again, he was the perfect patient as you ran your hands over his body, checking the bruising, the areas with the most pain, for anything broken. He was as obedient as most children you encountered back when you were an ED nurse, though he whimpered more than you were expecting.
You did not like that you liked it.
Once he was back on his feet, George helped him out of his protective gear, and Johnny made Lance bring the camera closer to show off the bruise that had already formed on his stomach. All the crew winced at the sight of it, and you knew it would only get bigger before it started to heal.
You slowly reached out to prod it gently, and Johnny shuddered, as if he had felt it careening all around his body.
“At least you won’t need surgery.”
“Shame.” Johnny pouted again. “I think I’d look pretty rad with a new scar.”
“A new scar?”
Johnny had to lean down to meet your eyes. “Just wait ‘til you see the one on my ass.”
This time, you were the one to laugh. You missed the way his face brightened. You weren’t to know that he’d been waiting all day just to make you laugh, that over the course of a few months he’d gotten used to the sound echoing around the set, waiting on the other side of the camera as he did something stupid without getting hurt. You were the first one to laugh when he showed up with a patch of his hair shaved, nearly doubled over every time you accidentally moved to that side of him. He’d have shaved the whole damn thing off if it made you laugh like that again. But you hadn’t even smiled since he told you about this particular stunt.
Had you really been that worried about him?
Two days later, the bruise was double the size, and the camera lingered on the soothing way you rubbed arnica cream onto it without knowing they were watching. It lingered even longer on the way Johnny’s gaze softened as he watched you.
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You were way overdressed.
When the boys had asked you to come to drinks that night after work, you hadn’t expected the bar to be some dingy, hole-in-the-wall without even a sign to tell you you were in the right place. All you had to go on was the muffled rock music filtering through the door, the crowd of smokers near the entrance, and the hopefully correct directions Chris had given you.
Chris Pontius had invited you when you were soothing the bruise on his cheek, after a civilian had taken his Party Boy bit too seriously. He said they all wanted to see you come out of your shell a bit more, to see the type of woman behind the first aid backpack you lugged around with you everywhere, and that they were all going for drinks anyway, so you might as well come, too. So you were here, after a gruelling two hours trying to dress to impress, and the place looked like it should have been bulldozed back in the eighties. How did they even find this shithole?
You pushed open the door, and heads twisted towards you. It was just as seedy inside. Liquor-sticky carpet, dim lights that hadn’t been dusted in years, pool tables in the corner, a darts board against the wall, and a bartender who looked like he’d just come out of WWE. You shuffled on your black mules in front of all those eyes. Definitely overdressed. Usually, if you and Kristy went out for drinks, your pink top with the ¾ sleeves that hung low on your breasts and the black midi skirt that clung to your hips was the perfect outfit. Not here. Not with all these men in this seedy place that stunk of yeasty beer and smoke.
“Our medic!” Chris bounded over to you, and you realised that instead of going home after the shoot like you did, the boys had all come here. All of the main cast were spread around the bar, cut off into little groups, with drinks in hands and voices rising over the music. Some of the crew had even come, Jeff and Rick, mingling, drinking, enjoying themselves.
Chris caught you around the waist and tugged you upwards into a hug. He was always the first person every morning to hug you. It had turned into him spinning you around, like he was genuinely excited that you were there to keep them from killing themselves, and that usually alerted the rest of the crew to your presence. You couldn’t say you hated it.
“How are you feeling?” you asked when he finally put you back down on your feet. The bruise had blossomed across his cheek, a deeper purple than it was just a few hours ago, already tinged yellow around the edges. You reached up to touch it gently, and he winced away.
“Forget about me,” he said, and grinned like that would magically make your worry disappear. “Look at you.” Chris’ hands on your waist tightened, and his eyes roamed your body in one quick flick. “I mean, fuck, you look like a…”
“A model?”
“No,” he laughed. “Like a really fucking sexy teacher.” And it made you laugh too, suddenly and completely out of the blue. You’d never heard that before. Chris had a strange way of making you feel comfortable, even in a place where your peep-toe mules were starting to stick to the carpet, so you let him lead you towards the bar. You passed men in thick biker jackets who didn’t even try to hide their staring, men in construction workers’ orange who at least pretended to be more subtle with it, and a man who sat by himself in a wife-beater and didn’t raise his eyes from the countertop.
You slid onto the bar stool next to the tall, dark-haired guy wearing a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt. The same one you owned.
“Copying me now, Knoxville?” you teased, eyes flicking down to his shirt.
He chuckled around the rim of his beer bottle. “Let’s just say you inspired me, angel.” Chris ordered the three of you drinks. Two beers for them and a Jack Daniel's with Coke for you. The bartender, who hadn’t smiled once since you walked in, even added a straw to your drink and only nodded at your timid thank you.
“Hey, Johnny, doesn’t she look good? Too good for a dump like this.”
“Man, you should’ve told her what this place was like when you invited her.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know she was gonna try to outdo me?”
“Oh, Chris, I couldn’t outdo you if I tried.”
He nodded, smug, and pressed a rather sloppy kiss to the apple of your cheek. You rubbed away the kiss as his laughter followed him across the room, to the pool table occupied by Ryan, Ehren, Jeff, and Preston. Nearby, Bam and David were trying to throw darts at Wee Man standing on a bar stool in front of the dart board, and Steve-O was showing Rick how to draw something on a coaster with his dick.
Johnny’s elbow touched yours, gently, and your head snapped towards him. “You didn’t need to dress up for lil’ ol’ me,” he joked. But with the way his eyes slowly dragged down your body and back up, catching on the low neckline of your stretchy top, you couldn’t be so sure it was a joke. Your leg crossed the other, and the hem of your skirt slid up just enough to show off the skin above your knee. His eyes caught the motion and stuck for a moment too long to be casual.
“I would’ve just worn jeans if I knew.”
“Glad you didn’t.”
It hung in the air for a beat longer than you were expecting, the way he stared at you, the way you stared back, the way you could so easily drown out the rest of the bar to focus on his hand slowly inching across the bar top towards yours. Your pinky stretched out and met his, and it stuck. Neither of you moved.
“How’s your stomach?” you asked, because you felt you had to say something. If you and Johnny just sat there in silence, staring at one another, one of the boys was going to notice.
“Aching. Every time I move, I can feel that fucking beanbag.”
You huffed a laugh, and he watched your smile curl upwards. His head tilted, just a little, and you stopped yourself from following the movement. Whatever had gotten into you, you’d have to shake off. The no fraternisation at work policy was there for a reason, so that when things inevitably went wrong, you didn’t have to worry about how awkward it would be the next day. You’d stuck to it ever since you were seventeen, and you weren’t going to break it for Johnny Knoxville. Even though he had pretty eyes and a million-watt smile, and made you feel seen when you’d gotten so used to being invisible.
Even though you really did want to break your streak for Johnny Knoxville.
“Hey, medic, you ignoring the rest of us?” Bam threw his arm around your shoulders from behind and pulled you back into his chest, a sort of half-hug you’d gotten used to with him. Usually, Bam opted for fist bumps, but every so often, he’d throw his arm around your shoulder if he was really pleased with a stunt.
“Sorry. Had to make sure Knoxville hadn’t succumbed to his wounds yet.”
“I’m alive and kicking, angel.” Your eyes flicked to him and found that warmth had flooded his gaze. You were never going to make it out of this movie without kissing him. Kristy was already convinced you should sleep with one – if not all – of them.
“You any good at pool?” Bam asked you. You shrugged; it’d been so long since you’d tried that you couldn’t really remember if you were any good. “Good at darts?” This time you shook your head, and he grinned so widely you were taken aback. “Good. I think you might be the one to finally hit Wee Man. C’mon.” He took you by the hand and led you over to the dart board, where Steve-O and Chris had joined in on the silly darts competition that meant throwing darts at Wee Man and complaining when he moved out of the way before they hit him.
You nursed your drink as you moved into place beside Steve-O, arm knocking against his in casual greeting, but your head twisted around, finding Johnny still in his seat, ordering drinks for him and Jeff, who’d taken your seat in your absence. He didn’t turn to look at you until you’d already turned away.
The rest of the night went like that. You flicked from group to group, and Johnny’s eyes trailed after you. You threw darts at Wee-Man, and luckily missed every shot, and Johnny watched from the bar with Jeff. You took shots with Chris and Steve-O that made your head swim and your eyes sting, and Johnny pretended to focus on the jukebox in the corner, though he couldn’t when he could hear your laughter in every corner of the room. When Ehren and David danced with you to Outkast’s Ms Jackson, Johnny’s dart almost got lodged in Rick’s arm.
It wasn’t until you gave the pool table a go that he decided to step in.
Bam and Ryan had doubled over with laughter as you struggled, over and over, to get the white ball to go anywhere. You threw your hands up, giggling from the alcohol that had already flushed your skin, and reminded the boys, once more, that you really could not play. The last time you’d played pool, you were a teenager. The last time you were even near a pool table, you were twenty-one, and all you remember was the guy in your college class who’d fucked you on top of it.
“Guys, I’m being serious; I’ll never be able to do this.”
“Nonsense.”
Johnny leaned his hip against the table, arms crossing over his chest, and you couldn’t tear your gaze away from the muscles straining in his biceps. He wasn’t as toned as Chris, but there was something about Johnny’s arms, about the sliver of stomach you saw as his shirt rode up, that made your mouth completely dry up. You remembered the last time you’d been on a pool table, the way your skimpy shorts had ridden up as he’d lifted you onto the edge. For a moment – a moment too long – you could imagine Johnny Knoxville doing the exact same thing.
“I’ll teach you.”
“You’ll teach me?”
“Sure will. I could’ve gone pro, but I had different dreams.” You giggled and didn’t notice until it was too late that Johnny had come up behind you. “Now the key is to get down nice and low.” His voice filled your ear, and then he was invading every one of your senses. His hands curled around your hips to manoeuvre you into place around the pool cue, and he used the pressure of his chest against your back to press you against the pool table. Your breath stuttered as his jeans brushed against you. “That way you can see exactly what you’re doin’.” You liked his accent when it was so close to you, when he was breathing against the shell of your ear. You were just glad you hadn’t drunk enough to make you completely stupid. His right hand slid yours up to the end of the cue, and his left pressed yours flat against the green felt of the pool table to work as a stand for the cue. “And now, you use just the right amount of pressure.” He helped with your first shot, and the white ball went pinging around the table. You didn’t even have it in you to smile. Not when you could feel his bulge pressing against the swell of your ass, not when his hands were still holding yours in place, not when he was sure to feel how hard your heart was beating.
He helped with your second shot, then your third, and finally let you go when your legs were shaking so much you didn’t think they could hold you up. You potted a red ball, and the boys all cheered for you, and you had to tack on a smile so they didn’t see how much Johnny had affected you.
“You did it,” you said to him, clutching the cue so hard you were pretty sure it would snap.
“Nuh uh, angel, that was all you.”
He left you to your match, and even though you lost, you couldn’t find it in you to care. Not when your heart hadn’t calmed down. Not when you could still feel his hands on yours. Not when every time you turned your head, he was already watching you, his lips curled around the rim of his beer bottle, his irises almost fully swallowed up by the dark pit of his pupil.
When he disappeared outside for a smoke, you followed.
It’d gotten dark. You hadn’t noticed. Inside that dingy bar with the sticky carpet and grimy lights, time seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. You could’ve been in there from dawn to dusk and back again, and you never would’ve noticed until you stumbled out holding your heels in your hand and needed to find a bush to throw up in. When did it start raining? You hadn’t heard it over the music pounding too loud inside, but the ground was damp, and the rainwater slipped over your hair. It was just a drizzle, you realised, but enough for it to make you shiver.
“P.J?"
His head lifted. He'd told you to call him that months ago, but you never had. He liked the way it sounded on your lips. His cigarette hung between his teeth, and he’d cupped his hand around his lighter to keep the flame from flickering out before it could light the end of it. Your mules click-clacked against the damp asphalt parking lot, and when you reached him, he was blowing out his first inhale. The smoke fluttered in your face, and usually you treated smokers polluting your personal air with disdain, but it was undeniably hot when Johnny Knoxville did it.
“You should go back inside, angel. It’s raining.”
“I know. Never kissed anyone in the rain before.”
His hand froze before his cigarette could reach his lips. And then it fell, crushed beneath his Converse as he surged forward to take your face in his hands. He kissed you like he’d been waiting for the confirmation that you wanted this too. He kissed you like he couldn’t breathe if it wasn’t your lungs he was stealing oxygen from. He kissed you, and you never wanted it to stop.
Your hands fisted the fabric of his unbuttoned plaid shirt to help you lean closer, to press your chest against his, to deepen the kiss beyond what you could expect. His tongue flicked against your lips, and you let him into your mouth without him even having to beg, letting his tongue map every nook and cranny of your mouth while you whined and pressed closer. The rain fell around you in a heavier sheet, now. You didn’t notice. Not as his fingers got caught in the tresses of your hair. Not as you finally got your first taste of cigarette smoke on his lips, mixed with vodka, and whiskey, and whatever that was he had been taking shots of with Chris.
Finally, you had to pull away, just to remember what it felt like to breathe fresh air. You were both soaked through by the rain, hair plastered to your heads, clutching each other like you couldn’t bear to be apart for longer than a second. Johnny combed the wet hair from your forehead so he could rest his forehead there instead. He smiled as your noses bumped.
“I don’t usually do this with people I work with,” you mumbled. Your lips ghosted his, and he smiled so widely it was hard not to copy him.
“Love being someone’s first.”
You laughed, and so did he, and it didn’t matter that it was raining, that your top had definitely gone a little see-through, that everyone knew why you’d followed Johnny outside. Because when Johnny kissed you again, and again, and again, nothing mattered but the feeling of finally getting what you’d been dreaming of every night for months.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
The jacuzzi was just on the nice side of warm.
“I haven’t even finished packing yet.” Kristy tilted her head back against the side of the jacuzzi. Her straightened jet black hair was up in a top knot to keep it from getting wet and turning curly, and she wore a red bikini that brought out the richness of her dark brown skin. She was also, to your consternation, the most laid-back person you had ever met, and never let a simple thing like packing for Hawaii get in the way of relaxing in the jacuzzi with you on the rare occasion you shared a day off.
You swirled red wine around the plastic wine glasses you’d brought down from your apartment. “You leave tomorrow. At, like, six am.”
“I know. It’ll take me no time at all to pack. Don’t worry, doll.”
You always worried about her. You’d known Kristy for six years, not long after you’d both turned twenty, and she’d moved from Wichita to Los Angeles to be a model. You’d met her when she was on the hunt for an apartment, having couch-surfed for over a month while everywhere that caught her eye was out of her price range, full of mould, or falling apart. You’d just moved into your apartment and were looking for someone to take over the extra room to help you pay the rent while you trained to be a nurse. Kristy needed her own bed, and you needed help splitting the bills, and ever since then, she’d been yours to worry about. You hated her model friends and the eating disorders they carried everywhere, and you hated her model boyfriends who drank all your orange juice and left their tiny underwear hanging around your bathroom. And, fortunately, Kristy hated modelling.
Now, she was the busiest wedding photographer in Los Angeles.
“I can help you pack.”
“You’re meant to be relaxing on your day off, remember. Your blood pressure is probably through the roof on that set.”
“God, don’t remind me. If I went for a checkup, the doctor would admit me to the hospital immediately.”
You tilted your head back, too, trying to focus on the massaging effect of the bubbles and the calming heat helping to slowly relax your muscles as you submerged yourself deeper and deeper. You drank red wine in the middle of the afternoon and enjoyed the faintest hint of music coming from Mrs Palermo’s piano lessons. She lived below you and Kristy, overlooking the complex pool, and usually you complained about the piano lessons, especially when the younger kids were clearly just mashing their hands against the keys, but this was nice. She must have had one of her more experienced tutees in. One of her proteges, as she liked to call them.
“So what is it actually like on set? It looks like the most fun a normal person can have, but for you.” Kristy lowered her sunglasses just enough to pierce you with her brown eyes. “I’m surprised you didn’t quit when they flew you out to Pennsylvania. You hate the cold.”
“I almost froze to death, but I didn’t hate it.” You took a sip of wine. You liked spending your days off with Kristy, relaxing in the jacuzzi, or window shopping on Rodeo Drive knowing you couldn’t afford anything, or taking your coffees to go so you could stretch your toes in the sand. And you liked going back to work knowing Johnny Knoxville was waiting for you. “It’s actually a lot of fun.”
“You’re having fun at work?” Kristy’s mouth dropped open in faux-shock, and you shoved her, mumbling a shut up while her laughter bubbled in the air between you. You rarely had fun on sets, that was true, far too focused on doing a good job, so nobody could complain about your unprofessionalism to your company. Kristy had been dying for you to let loose with strangers for years. When you’d told her about going out for drinks with the cast, she’d almost dropped her dinner all down herself and then scrambled to help you get ready. She was always telling you that you needed more friends.
You hadn’t told her about the kiss yet.
For weeks, you and Johnny had been sneaking about the set. Kisses hidden behind the crew vans during lunch breaks, lingering touches when you patched up another boo boo, soft smiles across the lot when you were both too busy to stagger closer. And for weeks, you had kept it all to yourself, afraid that saying it out loud would make it crumble before you had a chance to fully enjoy it.
“I should tell you–”
“Uh, what the fuck?” Kristy slid her sunglasses down her nose and pointed her wine glass towards the entrance of the complex pool. You almost dropped your own glass in the jacuzzi.
Rick, Johnny, and Preston Lacy lugged the camera equipment through the gates separating you from the rest of the neighbourhood. You’d overheard Preston talking about needing a pool for something they wanted to film and offered up the private pool used by the residents of your apartment complex, handing over the landlord’s phone number so they could ask for permission. You just didn’t expect them to show up on your day off. While you were using your jacuzzi, wearing only the white bikini you bought because of Claudia Schiffer.
You stood, and while Rick and Preston greeted you brightly and loudly, Johnny froze.
His eyes dragged down your body, stuck on the skimpy bikini, on the droplets of bubbling water sticking to your skin, on the few strands of hair that had fallen out of the clip to keep it from getting wet. He gulped, and maybe it was only obvious to you, but it made your entire body flame. It was the least amount of clothes he’d ever seen on you. And he looked to be struggling not to just drop everything and wrap his arms around you.
“What are you doing here?” you asked.
“Our prank. Best day to do it,” Preston told you. Rick started to set up the camera on the jacuzzi. “Everyone’s at home anyway, so we don’t need to bother them. And Johnny doesn’t know how to take a day off.”
You glanced at him again, and he was already looking at you. Already unable to tear his gaze away from the way the water trailed down your hip. You didn’t realise how much it thrilled you to have his eyes on you.
“You don’t mind us filming here, do you?” Rick asked Kristy. “I can make sure not to get you in the shot.”
“Oh God no, you better make sure I am in the shot. It’s my dream to be on Jackass.”
“This is Kristy, my roommate,” you finally said when their laughter died away. “This is Rick, Preston, and Johnny.” You hadn’t noticed him sliding closer, but when you turned, he was right there, leaning against the metal railing that was supposed to help you step in and out of the jacuzzi, close enough that he barely had to reach out to play with the string holding your bikini bottoms in place. Rick and Preston were too busy chatting away to Kristy to even notice.
“Miss me, angel?”
“I saw you yesterday, Knoxville.”
“‘Cause I missed you.”
You snorted, totally unattractively, and it caught the attention of your roommate, who knew exactly what that sound meant. She took another sip of her wine as she watched you and Johnny for a moment, the way he leaned down to whisper in your ear, the way you pushed at his chest with a single finger that lingered longer than was necessary, the way you both looked at each other with a totally recognisable gleam in your eyes. God, were you this obvious in front of everyone? Was she the only person to clock it?
“You have me to thank for your medic, there, by the way,” Kristy said, pointing her wine glass at you. “She never would have taken the job if I hadn’t pushed her to leap out of her comfort zone.”
“What’s that? We aren’t in your comfort zone? I’m shocked.” Johnny wriggled his finger into the space between your ribs, and you slapped his hand away with a shriek that made him laugh. That laugh that left him totally breathless. That laugh that left you totally smitten. It was never going to be just kisses in the few minutes you got alone. Not when you could never have a relationship that wasn’t all in from the first second.
“Get on with your filming so I can relax again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Johnny saluted and moved to the other side of the camera with Rick to watch what he was filming. Kristy pierced you with a knowing smirk as you sat next to her again, very obviously making sure the jacuzzi water didn’t cover your tits because you liked the way Johnny couldn’t help but glance over.
“We are so talking about this later,” she whispered, and you heard the amusement tinting her tone.
At the side of the jacuzzi, Preston stripped off his clothes, leaving him in only his underwear, and you were worried he was going to take a running leap and soak you completely. He didn’t. He just sank in across from you and Kristy and cracked open a beer. The three of you sat in relatively strange silence as, behind the camera, Rick and Johnny struggled to hide their sniggers. You shared a look with your roommate. What was the prank? You were still expecting someone to come running out of nowhere and cannonball into the jacuzzi to soak you all. They’d probably hurt themselves in the process. It’d probably be Bam or Steve-O; they were the least likely to care about their personal safety.
Eventually, Preston stood, and you couldn’t control your wheezing laughter when you saw he’d been wearing underwear that went completely translucent in the water. Kristy shrieked and covered her eyes, but it didn’t take long before she was laughing, too. You clutched at one another as your laughter rippled through the air. There was no set like the Jackass set. No cast or crew who could make you laugh quite as much as they did with something as simple as see-through underwear. You’d never worked anywhere that left you feeling so light. Sure, they could try to kill themselves twenty times a day by trying to skateboard into dirty river water blindfolded, but there were no other group of men you trusted to actually not die doing something deadly.
You’d have to remember to buy Kristy something that could express just how much you loved her for forcing you to sign up for this job.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
The spider appeared when you were least expecting it.
You were too busy forcing Lance to drink water after he’d fainted once again to notice the sniggers of the crew around you. Dimitry trained his camera on you and Lance, on the gentleness with which you smoothed the sweaty hair from his face, though your tone of voice telling him to be more careful was anything but kind. Bam snuck towards you, spider cupped in his hands, warning everyone to be quiet the closer he got.
The spider landed in your hair with a soft thud, and you didn’t notice.
You twisted your head to find Bam frozen behind you, hands half-lifted, a grin threatening to break through on his lips.
“What are you doing?” you asked, not trusting anything he did around set. You were there when he’d hired the alligator to scare his mom in her house. It worked, but ever since then, you’d kept a wary eye out anytime Bam was near.
“Nothing.”
You certainly did not trust that look on his face. And then you felt the movement in your hair, and you glanced up as the spider slid down to crawl across your forehead. The scream tore through you before anyone had time to laugh, and you shook your head like a wild dog in the vain hope the spider would go flying off. It didn’t. It clung to you. Around you, the crew descended into chaotic laughter, falling to their knees as you continued to scream and hope that would scare the spider away.
You could feel it crawling over you.
“Get it off!” you screeched at Bam, but he was practically comatose with laughter on the ground. Everyone came running at the sound of your high-pitched, terrified screaming, and ended up just like Bam, and Lance, and Dimitry, on the ground, laughing until tears rolled down their cheeks. To them, it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Their stick-in-the-mud medic flailing around all because she was scared of spiders. They’d seen you telling off the cast with every dangerous stunt; they’d seen you giggling from the sidelines; they’d even seen you a little drunk at the bar. But this was a side of you they could only thank Bam for. To you, it was your worst nightmare coming true.
When Johnny appeared, you assumed he would save you.
Once he realised you weren’t actually hurt – he’d been imagining the worst as he raced over from the craft tent – his laughter sent him doubling over, trying to catch his breath. Your screams ground to a halt, and finally the spider fell from your head, landing on the concrete and scuttling away. Johnny was still laughing. They were all laughing. Your hands were shaking, your eyes stinging with tears you refused to shed in front of them, and they just laughed. You weren’t supposed to be the one they laughed at.
“Get out of my way,” you snapped, because it was easier to get mad than show them that you were still shaking. You shoved past Johnny before he could reach out to stop you, and only then did the laughter start to sober up. Had they taken it too far?
You stormed around the set because you had no idea where to go. Where was safe from all the eyes, all that laughter that was stuck roaring in your ears? You could still feel that fucking spider crawling over you, and a shudder rocketed down your spine. Goddamn Bam. You imagined his reaction if you’d tried that on him with a snake, and knew he wouldn’t have been afraid to curse you out in front of everyone. You, on the other hand, were too ashamed of your fear.
You scrambled into the back of one of the empty crew vans, tugged your knees up to your chest, and cried before everybody started milling around again. Before anybody could get close enough to hear you trying to stifle your tears through shaky breaths. Fuck. Why couldn’t you get your hands to stop shaking? It was stupid. You were being so dumb, getting so worked up over a stupid prank that probably wouldn’t even be featured in the film.
“Hey, hey, angel, you’re okay. You’re okay, now.” An arm slid around your shoulder and pulled you into a chest you knew too well by now. You squeezed your eyes shut to keep the tears from bubbling up again and clutched at the back of Johnny’s shirt. You wanted to push him away. You wanted him closer.
“I hate spiders.” Your voice shook. You hated it. You never allowed yourself to be so vulnerable, especially not at work, especially not in front of men you were just meant to be kissing and nothing else.
“I know. Fuck, I’m sorry, angel. I shouldn’t have laughed.” Johnny rubbed a soothing hand up and down your spine. You curled a little more into his touch. You should have been mad at him, but you liked the way his hand felt slowly sliding under the hem of your shirt and against your skin.
“You could’ve waited until you’d gotten rid of the spider.”
“‘S that what you wanted?” You nodded against his chest and felt him smile, then press a cheesy kiss to the top of your head. “Aw, my pretty girl, I’ll remember that next time, all right?” His hand curled around your jaw to push your head away from his chest, allowing him to get a good look at your red cheeks and puffy eyes. He pouted, and you hated that it sent a thrilling shock careening through your body, and you hated that you knew it was always going to be more than just kissing with Johnny Knoxville. Not when he’d been able to make your heart flip from the very first moment you met. “Sorry again, angel,” he said, keeping his hand curled around your jaw so you were forced to meet his eyes. “I’ll save you first, next time.”
“There better not be a next time. I’m only a medic.”
“You’re part of the crew now. You’re fair game.”
You pouted, and he leaned down to brush his lips against yours. Just enough that your body ached for more when he leaned away again. He glanced around quickly, over his shoulder, then around the open doors of the van, and when he realised there was nobody around to see him, he kissed you deeper, hungrier. Your mouths clashed, like he’d been waiting all day for a taste of you and didn’t know how to be polite about it anymore. You didn’t want him to be polite. You liked the way he kissed you when he didn’t need to hold back. The way he rolled you over in the back of the crew van so he could hover over you, so he could press his thigh between your legs and smirk when you keened, so he could kiss you until you were both breathless and had completely forgotten about the prank.
“If someone catches us–”
“Nobody’ll catch us. See.” Johnny leaned out, grabbed the handles of the van doors, and swung them shut with a loud bang. Now it was just you and him in the back of the crew van, the sounds of the set muffled by the doors, blocked from sight by the tinted windows. “We’re safe.”
You kissed him again to show him you did feel safe, and when he slipped his hand down the front of your pants, you didn’t push him away like you might’ve months ago, before this set showed you how to step out of your comfort zone.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
You’d given up telling Johnny when one of his ideas was stupid.
It never worked anyway; he just laughed you off and got on with it. He got hurt, and you fixed him, and you were pretty sure the reason he threw himself into these crazy stunts was just to have you there to patch him up at the end. Afterwards, when you were sure nobody was watching, he’d sneak a kiss that’d made you both giggle and joke about experimental medicine until Johnny’s laugh alerted everyone to your location.
Outside the department store, Johnny fixed his pink boxing gloves into place with his teeth.
Your gaze caught the motion and stuck, stomach dropping as Johnny’s eyes lifted to meet yours, mouth tilting into a smirk around the strap of the glove. You ignored the heat pounding through your body best you could, but it was hard to ignore the way you felt suddenly damp. Stupid Johnny Knoxville and his pretty eyes, and his dangerous smile, and the fact he knew exactly what he was doing to you.
Rick fixed the camera on his shoulder and counted down to filming. You clung to Jeff’s side as you usually did during filming, trying to stay out of the way of the cameras as much as you could, though you were sure they had caught your reactions to the more dangerous stunts once or twice. If you featured in the movie, Kristy would never shut up about it.
“I’m Johnny Knoxville–”
“And I’m Butterbean.”
“Today we’re gonna do a little boxing.”
One of the production assistants, who pretty much helped keep the rest of you organised by running herself haggard around every shoot, entered the department store dressed up like a ring girl in the tiniest pair of shorts you’d ever seen. She held up a Round One sign, though you were pretty sure this wasn’t going beyond that. One punch and the heavyweight champion would have Johnny swallowing his own mouthguard.
The customers froze where they were, twisting their heads to see what the crew was doing, when Johnny and Butterbean started boxing in the middle of the store. You watched with bated breath with Jeff, and though you’d seen the boys do more than their fair share of dangerous stunts, this felt even more tense. It was like you were just waiting for it to end badly. You’d seen Johnny get pummelled by a bull, Steve-O almost get bitten by a crocodile, and Pontius had almost sheared his balls in half with the electric razor, but this was somehow worse. You let your backpack full of necessities – over-the-counter meds, first aid kit, trauma kit, BP cuff, stethoscope, sunscreen, back pain patches, everything you usually lugged around with you – hang off one shoulder.
Johnny was the first to go down, understandably, but Butterbean goaded him into standing back up. You wished you could have told him to just keep lying there, but he’d never listen anyway. For Johnny, it was all about the shot. For all of them, really. All the boys were willing and wanting to get hurt as long as it looked good on camera. As long as the fans watching would laugh, they’d go for it. So, Johnny pushed himself back up and managed a punch. The next time Butterbean hit him, Johnny was out.
A few moments passed, as they usually did when filming a stunt, waiting for one of the boys to lift his thumb and promise they were all good. The thumb never came, and you heard it before anyone else did: that odd choking sound you’d heard before in the emergency department. Johnny was out cold, and his tongue was blocking his throat.
“Fuck, let me pass.” You pushed your way through the watching crowd to get to Johnny, backpack hitting the floor as you kneeled beside him. Slowly, but confidently, you rolled him into the recovery position and made sure his tongue had slipped back into its usual place. Only then did you remove his bloody mouthguard. While you waited for him to wake back up, you unpacked your essentials from the backpack, ignoring the sounds of worry chattering away behind you. It was easier to feel calm when you pretended you were in a hospital again, when this was not the man you’d been kissing secretly whenever the two of you managed to split off from the ever-watching crowd.
This is why you never got involved with stuntmen.
“Are you an angel?”
You twisted towards Johnny again, checking the time on your watch. He’d only been out for two, maybe three minutes. He’d probably not be able to retain any short-term memory for the next half hour.
“Yeah, you died; this is department store heaven.”
“Aren’t I one lucky son of a bitch?”
At least he still sounded like himself. At least he could still get a laugh out of you. He tried to roll out of the recovery position, but you stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder, and he blinked up at you. Dazed, disoriented, and… shit, was that blood? You’d have to deal with that in a minute; first, you had to make sure he wasn’t going to pass out again.
“What’s your name? Do you know where you are?”
Johnny scoffed, and his mouth sounded dry. When he noticed the expression on your face that mixed softness with severity, the one you used to use in the hospital to make patients cooperate, he realised you weren’t joking after all. “I’m Johnny Knoxville. P.J. to my friends. I’m filming for Jackass in a department store in Los Angeles.” You hummed and gently squeezed his shoulder.
“Good. You got knocked out for around three minutes. You might have some memory issues over the next hour.” Slowly, you helped him into a sitting position. Behind you, the rest of the crew reassured the customers and store staff that this was a stunt and that you were a medical professional. You could feel Rick’s camera on you, and you knew this whole section would be a big hit in the movie. The fans loved seeing the crew getting to do their actual jobs instead of just being on the receiving end of pranks.
“Is Butterbean okay?” Johnny asked, and laughter trickled throughout the crew. Trust Johnny to say the perfect thing for the camera. Trust Johnny to be able to make you all laugh when you were worried about him.
“You got a hit.”
He cheered quietly, and then winced, as if the sound was too loud for his ears. You went through the usual concussion checks while your fingers gently prodded around his neck, ears, and head. Johnny patiently answered each of your questions, one hand lingering on your knee now that you were close enough to touch. Headache – check. Ringing in the ears – check. Nausea – check. Dizziness – check. Slurred speech – check. Delayed response to questions – check. Dazed appearance – check. You were one hundred per cent sure he was concussed.
You cleaned his head wound as best you could in the middle of the department store with your sterile wipes, but you knew you couldn’t do more for him than that out here. You pressed down with some gauze to staunch the bleeding as much as you could, unaware of the blood on your grey halterneck vest.
“We need to take him to the hospital,” you told Jeff, who had watched you work periodically between talking to the store staff. “He needs stitches and probably some scans to make sure his head’s okay.”
“You really look like an angel in this lighting.”
“And he’s concussed.”
Four of you accompanied Johnny to the hospital in one of the crew vans. The driver and Jeff in the front seat, Rick, who kept filming to pick up all the best bits, and you to keep the bandage pressed against the wound. And to, as they all claimed you were the best at doing, keep Johnny calm. You’d never seen him wound up, really, but you were still grateful that he slumped against you rather than start panicking. He wouldn’t be the first person to suddenly shift personalities because of a concussion.
“Where are we going, Knoxville?” Rick asked, since you’d told everyone to keep Johnny talking to make sure he didn’t pass out again.
“The hospital.” Johnny’s speech was still slurred. It was like he was drunk all over again. Drunk and cuddly, with the way he nuzzled into you. You just hoped Rick and Jeff didn’t think too much about it. You had more pressing matters than trying to explain why Johnny Knoxville wasn’t leaving you alone.
“What the hell are we doing that for?”
“I don’t know. Apparently, I have a big gash in my head, and I think I’m a little concussed.”
This time, you scoffed, and Johnny’s eyes flicked up to you, softening. The camera would catch it immediately, the simpering way that Johnny looked at you. The very easy tell that there was something more going on than just a budding friendship between a stuntman and his medic.
“A little, he says.” And it was enough to split the tension in the car and make you all laugh again.
In the hospital, Johnny asked that you hold his hand throughout getting his stitches, even though it wasn’t the first, nor the last, time that he’d get stitches. You were pretty sure he just wanted the excuse to slip his fingers between yours, to press his palm firmly against yours, to feel the soft way your thumb traced the rise of his knuckles. He didn’t even flinch at the anaesthetic, nor at the stitches; he just watched you with one of his goofy smiles until you cracked one of your own to show him you weren’t so worried anymore. To show him that you could slip out of your nurse persona just as easily as you zipped into it.
He still hadn’t told you just how much he liked being ordered around by you.
“There’s my angel.”
You blushed so brightly it even made the doctor laugh.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
The motel room in Florida was hot, and stuffy, and smelled of sex. The last part was entirely your fault, but it didn’t help that the air conditioning wasn’t working in Johnny’s room.
You stretched in the bed, legs tangling with Johnny’s under the duvet, skin sticky with sweat and thighs aching in that sweet way that made you never want to move from this position. Johnny mumbled something in his half-asleep state and tightened his grip on you, as if he didn’t want to dare let you get up. You wouldn’t have anyway. The one day you didn’t have a single thing to do, and you were going to spend it right here with Johnny Knoxville, with the broken air-con, with the heat clinging to the walls, with his hands crawling over your body.
“You awake, angel?” Johnny whispered against your neck.
“No. Don’t wanna be.”
“Good, me neither.”
His arms tightened around your waist and tugged you closer until you couldn’t tell who started where. You let your legs tangle, let your arms hang loosely around his middle, and opened your eyes just enough to catch the golden light glinting through the half-open blinds and drenching his sweat-soaked, messy hair. You couldn’t help but smile. This was nice. Even if you were too warm, even if you did feel sticky, you didn’t mind waking up to this every morning.
You’d snuck over to Johnny’s room last night when you were sure none of the other cast and crew was milling around the parking lot with the beers you’d bought way too much of. He’d left the door on a latch for you, but he was showering when you snuck in, and you were pretty sure you forgot to lock it behind you in your sudden desire to join him under the lukewarm water. Florida was far too hot. But you’d complain about that later. In here, you weren’t going to complain about anything. In here, you were going to enjoy the rather soothing way Johnny’s kisses tickled your neck.
Laughter erupted from the next room, clear as day through the motel walls, and you and Johnny froze. The walls here were thin. Thinner than either of you was expecting. Bam and Ryan were sharing one of the rooms next to Johnny; Jeff was in the other, and they would have heard everything. They would have heard you fucking in the shower, on the dresser, on that stupid little armchair that you were pretty sure broke with your combined weight on it. There was no way in hell they didn’t hear. What if they were laughing because they knew?
“They won’t have heard.”
You sat up and let the duvet fall around your waist. “They absolutely will have heard.”
The laughter got louder, and you mentally cringed, remembering all the noises you made last night before you could feel too embarrassed to shut yourself up. All the whining, all the too-loud fucks, all the almost screams. You were never a quiet lay anyway, but God, Johnny had coaxed out every little sound he could just to have the smug satisfaction that he could.
“Will you–” Johnny grabbed your waist to pull you back down on the bed, a breathy giggle escaping you before you could hold it under your tongue as you landed beside him. “–please stop worrying?” He nuzzled his face against your neck, then scattered kisses along the skin as he was prone to doing now. Every time you showed the slightest inch of skin, he could barely hold back from peppering sweet kisses over it, like a claim, like a reverence. You were still giggling as you jokingly tried to push him off, though your arms felt like jelly with each kiss pasted along your shoulders, or neck, or collarbone. It was easy to ignore the laughter with Johnny trailing his hand down to your thighs.
The door slammed open, and you knew you forgot to lock it last night.
“He’s got the car up his ass, dude–” Steve-O froze. Johnny froze. You froze. You stared at one another for a beat too long. “Wait. What the fuck? Are you fucking our medic?”
Johnny grabbed the pillow from beneath his head and lobbed it across the room. It smacked Steve-O in the face as he tried to stumble from the room, and he laughed as he fell to his knees, clutching his face and screaming about how he’d been hit. In no time, the rest of the guys would appear to see what all the fuss was about, and whatever secret you and Johnny had been trying to hide would be no more.
You hid your face in his chest and felt his laughter rumbling there.
✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
Hi!
This fic is actually longer than either of my dissertations had to be, and this only took me like a week to write. Idk how many Johnny Knoxville fans will find this, but hopefully there is at least one of you. And I'll be continuing it on my AO3!
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