a/n: hi everyone!!! welcome to my first jknox fic. i will say, I do write for another blog on here, but i want to give some attention to the myth, the man, the legend himself. pls enjoy & my asks are now open, so send in requests! lets be friends!!!
Summary: You'd never quite been able to relax your shoulders. The idea of being able to have someone else help carry the weight had never occurred to you. That is, until Johnny Knoxville saw right through your facade and noticed the most microscopic motions and habits.
‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧⁺ ⊹˚‧⁺ ⊹˚.‧
Some buildings were designed to sway. Others spend the entire span of their structural existences trying not to.
You never quite knew how you ended up with someone who thought the world was so adaptable to him, and not the other way around. He had a sort of demeanor to him that made him not fearless.
He wasn't fearless. People always got that wrong.
Fearless people don't wince before impact. They don't hiss through their teeth when antiseptic touches fresh skin or laugh a little too hard after landing because the alternative is admitting it hurt.
Johnny was afraid plenty, more often than not.
He just refused to negotiate with fear.
You'd learned early on that the fearless exterior wasn't the result of someone who didn't care, no, but instead of someone who had spent his whole career doing things without being allowed a second thought. It was something you'd grown to admire before you even fully knew who he was.
You weren't quite sure why you thought you'd managed to convince yourself you'd hidden your anxiety so well. You were commonly concerned with how you presented yourself, apologizing on multiple occasions for your nonexistent 'rude tone' and the 'resting bitchface' that never sat on your face.
The first few times you stayed at Johnny's place, you'd spent a large amount of your time watching his every move, attempting to memorize the flow of things. You wanted everything down to a T, no room to mess anything up.
It was on repeat in your brain like your favorite film.
Which cabinet held the dishes.
If shoes were worn in the house.
Rather or not towels got placed on the shower rod or a hook.
If the butter went in the fridge or on the counter.
Every house had rules, unspoken or not. You'd learned to read them ahead of time, to avoid any sort of interaction that might cause discomfort.
Your brain was always on high wire and it read on your face. It felt like one small, wrong move and everything would explode, scorching everything in its path. There were times when he was exhausted from a day of filming, bruises forming on his chest, his ribs, and you still found it hard to convince yourself that the somber look on his face wasn't due to you.
You'd become an expert in the energy of a room before you ever even considered how to be at home in it, and that was your life.
It was about 3 months into dating that he'd called it out. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed, that he didn't see the flinch when you dropped a pan in the sink doing dishes, something beyond shock from the noise. That he hadn't internally started counting every single 'sorry' that escaped those pretty little lips of yours for no reason at all. That it wasn't obvious that your eyes stayed glued on him, memorizing his habits and patterns.
He chose to let you observe, take everything in, soften your edges before he'd bring it up.
It was a rainy night and there was pasta boiling on the stove. Johnny had a day off from filming, and you'd spent most of it curled up on the couch, watching tv. He was standing by you at the stove, messing with the hem of your t-shirt, scrunching it in his hands and pulling you closer, snickers coming out of his mouth from your playful annoyance.
"Can you stop that?" you'd questioned with a laugh of your own, scrunching your nose up and furrowing your eyebrows as you turned.
You placed your hands on his chest, gently pushing him away. Johnny gripped onto your hips, pulling you in a little closer with a shake of his head.
"No can do, sweetheart. Need you close," he'd quipped back, shooting you that same toothy grin you loved oh so much.
You sighed as you leaned into his touch, closing your eyes for a moment as you relished in the bliss of his touch. Warm, calloused, and firm. It wasn't until seconds later you'd come back to, all of the sudden far too aware of the sloshing sound coming from the pot in front of you. You turned your attention to the pot on the stove, your eyes widening as you broke free from his grip.
"Shit, shit, shit," you muttered out, rushing to turn the stove down to keep it from overflowing anymore.
There was a mess of pasta water on the stove, and you were sure some of it had burnt onto the stove eye. You let out a sigh as you furrowed your brow, your teeth clamping down onto the bottom of your lip.
Johnny watched you intently, brows furrowed as he observed your behavior. It wasn't just the inconvenience of cleaning up a little pasta water. He could see that. Based off of his time with you so far, he knew that he was your main concern. You'd never liked to inconvenience him. He could see it in the way you apologized every time you stood a little too close to his space in the kitchen while he did something. He could even see it in the way you profusely apologized the first, and only, time you'd tipped a glass of water onto the carpet.
As you turned to apologize once again to the man beside you now that the crisis was averted, he stopped you. He stuck one finger up in the air. His eyebrows raised as he gave you a soft, reassuring smile, shaking his head slowly.
"Baby, it's just pasta," he stated simply, his voice somehow dripping sweet like honey.
"I know," you said back, ready to plead your case. "But I could've burnt your stove, and I made a mess in your space because I wasn't paying attention, and that's on me."
Johnny took a beat, licking his lips as he studied your face.
"So, if you know it's just pasta, why you apologizin' like you just tried to kill my first born?"
You paused, suddenly caught in your tracks, aware of just how absurd it may sound to the average person to feel just this distraught over pasta on the stove.
Johnny leaned down, pressing a kiss to your forehead. He grabbed your face in the palms of his cut and bruised hands, gently squishing your cheeks together. He ensured your eyes were glued to his, swiping his thumb over the bottom of your plump lips.
"Listen to me baby, it's just pasta. It ain't gonna be offended, you didn't hurt anyone. Nothin's broken, ain't nobody in danger. You're good, we're good," he reassured, a softness to his voice that wasn't usually present in most situations.
There's another silence between you as you nod your head, a smile that told the both of you that you understood. He let go of your face, swiping both his thumbs across your cheeks as he brought his arms back to his side.
"You noticed I stopped slamming the cabinets so loud?" he questioned in a monotone voice, as if the question held no weight.
You looked at him slightly puzzled, cocking your head to the side. "No, I didn't. Why?"
"You flinched every time, so I quit."
Johnny had never asked you to stop being anxious. He'd never rolled his eyes at your apologies or told you to "just relax." Instead, he'd learned the language your fear spoke long before you realized he'd been listening. He noticed the flinches, the apologies, the way your eyes searched a room before the rest of you entered it. And somewhere between the burnt pasta and his calloused hands cradling your face, you realized he understood. Not the apology. You. From that day forward, your anxiety was no longer something hidden between the two of you, quietly dictating every room you entered. It became something the two of you carried together, acknowledged when it whispered, soothed when it screamed, and, on the days it grew too loud, laughed at until it remembered it wasn't the one in charge.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
ellievsbear
gracieabrams
snowghoul
