fmu: chapter fourteen ;p (Patreon)

fill (me) up

synopsis: he's stubborn. he's cocky. and he's unfortunately stupidly in love with you. not that you've noticed. you went from being his biggest fan to being too busy chasing your own acting career to pay attention to him or his wins. that is, until your agent and his PR manager suggest an affair between everyone's least favorite actress and racer that lands you directly in his lap once again.

pairing: grumpy!f1 driver x actress f!reader

content: angst/fluff, PR relationships, past toxic/controlling relationships, complicated feelings, slower build, reluctant/avoidant reader, jealousy, HEAVY PINING, so much yearning its insane, grumpy but soft f1 driver, ANGST IN THIS ONE

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He didn’t know what came first. 

The crunch. Or the pain. 

The last full thought that crossed his mind was that he wished the crash knocked him unconscious. 

Logically, he knew that the crash was probably far louder than what he heard, but everything had gone black for a few excruciatingly long moments, his brain blocking out all the confusing and conflicting sensations until it found smaller things to focus on.

The smell of something burning flooded his nostrils as he tried to disconnect the harness, fumbling for all the steps that had once been drilled into him. Disorientated as he yanked the steering wheel off, tossing it out as he struggled to get out. 

His body wasn’t listening to him though, fingers trembling as he tried to pull himself together through the throbbing ache. His head hurt. His back hurt. Actually, every inch of him felt like hell, all the G-forces he just endured sending wave after wave of nausea through him. 

Someone was grabbing him, a marshall maybe, yanking him out of the cockpit as they sprayed the car down. 

But he couldn’t stand straight. 

Knees threatening to crumple the moment he was up on his feet – and the crowd in the stands were shouting, a thousand different sensations all fighting for his scrambled attention. 

“I think I’m gonna-” 

He threw up. 

Puked right there on the ground as someone close by called his name. Three different sets of hands were all over him, pulling him different ways, every minor movement sending throbbing pain down his spine and into his legs as he groaned and gritted his teeth.

“The ambulance is-” 

“I want her,” he hissed, a metallic taste on his tongue that sorta terrified him as he tried not to pass out. Breathing your name like a last lifeline, his eyes shutting as he saw you behind them. 

Pretty and soft and sleeping. 

Curled up in a hotel bed against his chest, stirring to blink up at him and call his name. 

He needed it. 

He needed you. 

They were trying to talk to him again, pulling on him as the roar of the other race cars blared on behind him, passing by the crumpled remains of his car. The fucked up chassis, the broken parts, metal glittering around their feet as he felt himself start to get dizzy. 

His team principal was probably pissed. Engineers scrambling to figure out where the hell it all went wrong. 

He was too. 

Floaters dancing across his vision as the bleak idea that this might’ve been his last race flitted through his muddled brain. 

And just as darkness began to creep in the corners of his vision, he asked himself whether you would still want him if he was a loser.

♡

You didn’t think you’d ever gotten dressed so fast in your entire fucking life. 

Half flying across your room, yanking down clothes and stuffing random ones in a suitcase as you constantly checked the TV for updates. 

You knew it was bad when it took so long for the cameras to cut to the crash. 

Stomach twisting and churning when they finally showed his wrecked car, the front end crushed as they skipped back-and-forth from live coverage to replays of his onboard, always cutting it the moment before impact, speculating that his brakes must have locked up or failed entirely. 

They didn’t confirm he was fine. 

All they did was admit that the ambulance was going to take him to ‘get checked out’. 

It had to be awful. 

Close to tears as you turned your phone on, chewing on the inside of your cheeks until blood coated your tongue. Praying that someone there would have posted an update – whether a photo of him getting out or confirmation that it looked worse than it actually was, but there was just more guesses. 

Shaky videos from different angles of him hitting the wall, your throat closing as you tried to picture what it must have felt like for him in the cockpit. 

You couldn’t just lay around doing fucking nothing. You needed to be there. 

Whatever happened, whatever problems came up, they could be fixed later. 

All your previous issues felt a fuck ton smaller now. 

While you had been planning on spending all day curled up in your blankets, he was now facing spending the rest of his in a hospital bed. 

You threw your heavy bag over your shoulder, stuffing your phone in the pocket of your sweat pants with a sigh before you grabbed your purse, fingers trembling when you yanked open your front door – and nearly sent your manager and publicist falling over. 

“Great, you-” Your manager froze, stopping mid-sentence as she saw what you were doing. “Where are you going?” 

“My boyfriend got in a crash,” you said, your voice hard and hollow as you slipped past. “He needs me.”

Your contract with his team might be over. 

But you wanted to think that there was still something there. That what you shared was strong enough that he’d still want to be yours if there was nothing in it for him. 

No boost to his public image. No reason to be with you. Nothing but your presence. 

“The contract was breached,” your publicist feigned apology, and you briefly considered what the chances were that she was somehow on your ex’s payroll with how little she seemed to actually care about your now ruined reputation. 

“I don’t really care,” you deadpanned. 

It wasn’t going to stop you. 

Not until he told you himself that he was done. 

“This is a mistake,” your manager started, following behind you as you walked faster away from her. “You won’t be back in time to work tomorrow. People are counting on you-” 

“Don’t fucking talk to me right now,” you hissed before she could finish. 

You used to count on them. 

And where had that gotten you? 

“What am I supposed to tell the director-” 

“Figure it out,” you cut her off again, reaching the door to the stairwell as you tried to control how hard you were breathing, lungs straining as adrenaline bounded around inside your constricting chest. 

“Come back, let’s talk about this,” your manager desperately called after you.

She was going to drop you as a client. 

Technically, you could even get sued if you missed too much time on set, or if they thought you were in breach of that contract too.  

But you’d let a lawyer figure that out. Maybe the threat of a sexual harassment lawsuit would be scary enough for them to drop anything they could force you into. 

They already imploded your life anyway. 

Why not do something that actually mattered? 

Even if he didn’t want to see you right now, you wanted to see him. You wanted to know if he was okay.

Not because you were supposed to act like you cared.

But because you genuinely did. 

Maybe you kinda wanted something irreversible to happen to your career. Maybe it was easier to use him as an excuse so you wouldn’t have to keep justifying your attempts to cling to it.  

You always thought you’d be spending the next decade on sets and springing between projects. Building a name for yourself that would be known in households, well-respected and admired. 

Now you wouldn’t mind no one knowing it at all. 

Spending the rest of your days in some foreign country where you could safely be forgotten. 

Where no frenzied fans or psycho exes would follow. 

You slid into the front seat of your car, grateful that the paparazzi had given up on staking out your place as you started it up. Your phone rang in your pocket pocket, pulling it out to see an unknown number flashing across the screen that you accepted on the slim chance that it was him somehow. 

“Hello?” You hopefully answered, holding your breath as you heard commotion on the other end, the loud thrum of cars flying by and the cheers of a crowd and screeching sirens. 

The connection was fuzzy, flat out awful quite frankly, but through the crackle, you were pretty sure they asked if it was you. 

“Is he okay?” You impatiently asked, not sure if you were ready for the answer. 

“He’s going to the hospital now,” you were informed, not that they sounded that happy to be speaking to you. “He wants you-” 

“I’ll be there.” 

No matter what consequences would come. 

♡

“Please don’t die.” 

Well, if he was dead, he had to be in Hell with how much it fucking hurt to just twitch a few fingers, forcing himself to crack open his eyes and confirm what his ears were hearing. 

He’d been in crashes before. 

A couple pretty rough ones, but he’d been a bit younger. More resilient, he guessed. This ache was different. Bone-deep. His brain was throbbing. Vision blurring as he blinked a few times and tried to decide if this was real, or some vivid hallucination. 

But then you softly said his name, and it was enough for him to accept that maybe he’d done something good enough in his life to deserve waking up to you by his side. 

“Are you real?” He croaked, and your sigh of relief washed over his broken body. 

“Yeah, I am,” you sniffled, your fingers lacing through his. He guessed he could be grateful that he could feel that above all the pain. “How are you feeling?” 

He didn’t want to answer that. 

It would just make you feel bad. 

You were already going through your own problems. An embarrassing number of which he contributed to. 

If he hadn’t pissed off your ex enough, would he have gone that far to force a breakup? Kissed you like that without your consent? 

“How did you get here so quickly?” He groaned in pain, pushing the button with his other hand to sit up more, the hospital bed creaking as it shifted, every jostle reminding him that this was more serious than he wanted to act like it was. 

He wasn’t going to just be walking out of here in a few hours totally fine. 

“It’s, um, Monday,” you muttered, biting your lip as you squeezed his wrist. “Your team principal arranged a private plane for me right after the accident.” 

Wow. 

Was nearly dying all it took for them to fucking listen to him? Or was this the beginning of the end? 

You looked like you hadn’t slept at all. Dark circles etched under your eyes, your lips bitten raw as you slipped your hand back into your own lap self-consciously. The hoodie you were wearing was too big for you, but it wasn’t his. 

He knew he should be more concerned with himself. 

But a pitifully large part of him was entirely preoccupied with you. 

“Have you eaten anything?” He mumbled, just for you to let out a low huff of disapproval. 

“Just some vending machine junk,” you shrugged, but you looked away, and he knew you were lying.

“So, what’s wrong with me?” He asked, cringing as he tried to look down and take stock of his state. A little hard when most of him was still covered by the hospital blanket, a cocktail of pain killers dulling his senses as you shrugged sheepishly. 

“They won’t tell me,” you muttered. “I’m not family.” 

Oh. 

Yeah. 

“You could’ve told them you were my wife,” he muttered.

You laughed, and he nearly cracked a smile even though the muscles tugging up felt like someone was digging an ice pick through his skull. 

“I don’t think they would've believed me,” you swallowed hard as you spoke. “I mean, I’m not your girlfriend anymore.” 

“Says who?” He grunted. 

“Your team,” you mumbled, nose scrunching up for a second – but then you were back to putting on your mask of nonchalance. Acting like you didn’t care about what they said or did. “They said I was in breach of our contract and put out a statement that we broke up.” 

“I didn’t-” 

His heart rate spiked. 

Machines beeping like something was wrong as he paused, swallowing hard as your head snapped towards the sounds.

“Do you want me to go get a nurse?” You immediately asked, already pushing off the handles of the chair. 

“No,” he answered too quickly, shaking his head with a tight frown. “Stay here.” 

“Are you-” 

“Sit down,” he grunted. 

Your mouth pressed together, unhappily sitting back as he exhaled. But that just hurt his ribcage, his chest constricting at the realization that a few of them were certainly fractured – if not broken. 

Not great. 

But not the end of his season. 

It would be a bitch to drive like this, but summer break was basically here, so if it was going to happen, now was probably the best time for it. 

“Does it hurt a lot?” You asked, brows knitting together as your knees shifted away from him. Discomfort making you curl in on yourself, avoiding his stare as you stared at his legs. 

“No,” he lied. 

But you knew him better. 

Immediately cutting him a short glare like you wanted him to know you knew it wasn’t the truth. He held out his hand though, impatiently opening his palm to silently ask you to hold it again. Slowly, you slipped your palm back in his, fingers tentatively lacing between his own as you sucked in your lower lip. 

“Will you be my girlfriend?” He asked, his gruff voice cracking as he waited for your answer. Barely holding himself back from adding a for real this time to his question. 

“I don’t think your people would approve,” you carefully spoke, refusing to meet his stare. 

“I don’t think I give a shit,” he retorted, dark eyes narrowing as he tried to huff. But the force of it made him cough, and coughing just made his ribs feel like someone was actively kicking the shit out of him. Chest heaving as he hacked up nothing, struggling to catch his breath as he gasped for air. 

You let go of him again to reach for the call button, but he grabbed your wrist, still strong enough to wrap his fingers around it and stop you before you could. 

For all he knew, the second the nurses showed up, you would just slip back out. Excuse yourself and hop on a plane back home – back to your stupid fucking ex-boyfriend. 

“I want you to be mine,” he finally managed to croak out, wishing he sounded a little less wheezy as he stared at you. Honestly, ideally, he’d rather be doing this over dinner with a big, fancy bouquet and a beautiful necklace, but he guessed he couldn’t really be picky right now. Not when he couldn’t stand the idea of waiting and dragging this out any longer. “No contracts. No stupid PR teams. Just me and you.” 

“You’re serious,” you said, a hint of hope betraying your nonchalance as your pretty voice lifted at the end. 

“Any more and I might have a heart attack,” he muttered. 

“Everyone kinda hates me right now,” you mumbled, one last attempt to try and talk him out of what he’d been wishing for from the first weekend he met you. 

“I don’t,” he retorted, shaking his head as your eyes softened, the corner of your mouth just barely curling up. God, he wanted to kiss you. To cup your pretty face and press his lips against yours and take you back to his actual bedroom instead of some hotel. Convince you to come stay with him until everything blew over. 

Maybe get a cat for real. 

Stop racing and start a life where it wasn’t about flying from place to place and training and doing stupid sponsorships he couldn’t give less of a fuck about. 

You stood up. 

His heart sank, sure you were about to walk away, that you’d just mumble some excuse and swear you’d see him soon – leave him here where he couldn’t chase after you. 

But instead, you leaned forward, brushing sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead and pressing a soft kiss right between his brows. 

Your nose scrunched up hard a second later, your lips parting as you giggled, “You really need to wash this as soon as they let you.” 

“Gee, thanks,” he sarcastically grunted, but he was smirking, pretty confident that was a yes to his question. 

“I didn’t kiss him,” you abruptly blurted out, looking away from him as embarrassment etched itself into your beautiful face – out the window where the sun was just barely filtering through. Was it setting? Or rising? 

“I know,” he replied, intending to be soft no matter how hoarse and gravelly it came out. 

“I should’ve seen it coming, but he caught me off-guard and-” 

“You never have to defend yourself with me,” he bluntly asserted. It just irritated him more to hear you trying to explain yourself like you were in the wrong here. 

“I just didn’t want you to think that I, um, did that,” you exhaled, shoulders slumping as he managed to work up the strength to slip a hand to your side, tugging you over so you were sitting on the edge of the bed. 

Everything still fucking hurt, head still swirling and vision fuzzing around the edges from the meds, but you took the edge off far better than anything else. 

“When I get out of here,” he groaned again, readjusting as he rested his head on the pillow, drawing faint shapes on your side with the edge of his thumb. “I’m going to beat his fucking ass.” 

“I think you should focus on recovering first,” you huffed at him frowning as you stared at how still he was lying. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he grunted, giving you a weak thumbs-up. “I’ll be back to driving before you know it.”

He’d just have to think about how long he really wanted to keep it up for. 

The door swung open before he could even start to consider it, a nurse walking in with a doctor as you scrambled to sit back in your chair, all sheepish like you were suddenly shy instead of a superstar too. 

“Did I hear you say you want to get to driving?” The doctor asked, a haughty tone to his voice that he immediately disliked. 

“When I can get cleared, yeah,” he gruffly replied. But his dislike quickly morphed into distress the moment he saw the way they looked at each other. 

“Well, uh, we’ll just have to see about that.” 

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