#this is compounded for me by the fact that like

[jocelynellie]

The Breakup Pact - OB⁸⁷

Oliver Bearman x bestfriend!reader

Summary: Ollie and his best friend made a pact to not date anyone for at least 6 months after some terrible relationship fails but Ollie's PR desperately needs fixing. The solution? Fake dating.

Contains: fluff, some social media

Oliver Bearman was the king of the overtake and the king of bad decisions—off-track, at least.

His best friend stared at her phone, snorting at the headline: “Ollie Bearman: Fast Cars, Faster Breakups?”

"Honestly, do they think I’m collecting heartbreaks like podium trophies?" Ollie said, sliding into the seat across from her at their favorite London café. His baseball cap was low over his eyes, trying and failing to hide the fact that he was one of the most recognizable faces in Formula 1.

“I mean,” she said, handing over her phone with a wicked grin, “statistically, you’ve had more breakups than wins this season.”

“That hurts.”

She sipped her latte. “Truth often does.”

They’d made The Breakup Pact three months ago. Over tequila and takeout, sitting in sweatpants on her couch after she came home from what may have been the worst date she had ever been on and he had been dumped 2 days prior.

​​So they swore off dating. Six months, no exceptions.

No rebounds. No late-night texting flings. No feelings. Just friendship. Glorious, uncomplicated, platonic friendship.

And it worked.

Mostly.

Until Ollie started getting dragged by the press, and his PR team begged for a reputation fix.

Until she walked into the café that day in a sundress that made him forget what breathing was.

Until he slid his phone across the table and said, “Want to break the internet?”

Phase One: The Soft Launch

It started with a single Instagram post.

A blurry photo, posted on his Story. She was next to him on his boat on the lake, enjoying strawberries and chocolates. Her face wasn't visible, it was a perfect way to begin a soft launch.

Olliebearman posted a story

Caption: Not pictured: her 4-hour playlist of sad girl anthems.

Immediately, the F1 fandom lit up.

“WHO is she???”

“Y’all this feels personal.”

They said nothing.

Two days later, she posted a mirror selfie of the hotel room they were sharing for a Grand Prix weekend.

yourusername posted a story:

Caption: Slightly clingy xx

The comments came fast:

“Soft launch confirmed.” “Is this actually her?"

Phase Two: The Public Appearance

“You sure about this?” she whispered, looping her arm through his as they enter the paddock at Jeddah

"Yeah absolutely." He gives her a reassuring smile, his eyes shining when he looked at her.

The cameras went insane. Ollie Bearman with her on his arm.

People noticed. Social media really noticed.

And so, like all rational, emotionally mature adults... they leaned into it.

He was staring at her. Really staring.

And then he blinked, cleared his throat, and turned to face the cameras.

They smiled. They posed. They laughed like people madly in love. And somewhere, somehow, a line started to blur.

yourusername posted:

Caption: He made me match, 0/10 boyfriend

Olliebearman posted:

Caption: She called me bossy, 10/10 real girlfriend.

Over the next few weeks, “fake dating” became more real than either of them admitted.

It was subtle at first.

He started texting her “good morning” and “get home safe” like it was muscle memory. She began sitting through entire F1 practice sessions just to watch his onboards, making inside jokes about his cornering style.

During a race weekend in Austria, she found a note tucked into her hotel pillow. It was scribbled on the back of a tire compound chart, in his handwriting:

“If I crash, tell the world it’s because I was thinking about your smile. —OB”

She rolled her eyes. And yet she kept the note. Folded it neatly and slipped it into her wallet.

Phase Three: The Blur

It started as fake.

She knew that. He knew that.

But he still made her coffee every morning exactly the way she liked it.

She still memorized his qualifying times and texted him “your car deserves you” every race day.

He let her fall asleep on him during flights. She stole his hoodies. He never asked for them back.

And then there was the night in Barcelona.

He’d crashed out in Q2. A dumb mistake. His fist had slammed into the garage wall, and the media had been brutal. The words washed up and distracted were trending.

She found him hours later on the rooftop of his hotel.

"You okay?" she asked, sitting beside him on a pool chair under the stars.

“Fine,” he muttered, and then, softer, “I was supposed to be better by now.”

She took his hand. "You're still you. That’s always been enough."

He looked at her like she’d said something sacred. And then he kissed her knuckles, like she was breakable. Like he wanted to be careful.

And just for a moment, she forgot it was fake.

Phase Four: The Realization

It happened in Tokyo.

It wasn’t a big race weekend. No podiums. No press frenzy. Just a mid-season break and a getaway they booked “for the aesthetic,” according to Ollie—sushi, neon lights, cozy bookstores, and zero pressure.

It was supposed to be downtime. A break from pretending.

And that was the problem.

Because without the cameras, without the posts and the performance, there was still something between them. Quiet. Constant. And impossible to ignore.

They were walking through Shinjuku at night when it hit her. He was wearing a hoodie she'd "borrowed" months ago, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the breeze. She had just finished telling him a ridiculous story from her uni days, and he was laughing so hard he actually tripped on the curb.

And then—just like that—he looked at her.

And it wasn’t teasing. Or calculated. Or staged.

It was soft. So unbearably soft she nearly forgot to breathe.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, heart thudding stupidly.

Ollie slowed, eyes crinkling. “Like what?”

“Like…” She gestured vaguely. “Like you’re not faking it anymore.”

He didn’t answer.

And maybe that was the answer.

Back at the hotel, everything felt heavier.

He’d booked them a suite—two bedrooms, of course. They always kept up the illusion of separation, even when the walls between them felt thinner than ever.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through photos on her phone. Most of them were blurry. Candid. One showed him mid-laugh with his head thrown back, sunlight catching in his hair.

She stared at it longer than she meant to.

He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, towel slung over his shoulder, damp curls sticking to his forehead.

“You’ve been quiet,” he said, drying his hands on his shirt.

She didn’t look up. “I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

“Shut up.”

A pause.

“Want to tell me what about?”

She hesitated. Then: “This is starting to feel real.”

Ollie didn’t respond right away. He dropped down beside her, close but not touching, their knees barely brushing.

“I know,” he said quietly. “It does.”

Another beat.

She tilted her head. “So… what do we do?”

He exhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t know.”

They sat in the quiet for a moment. Long enough for the buzz of city traffic outside to hum between them. Long enough for her to feel the gravity of his presence, the warmth of him beside her, the way his pinky finger kept twitching like it wanted to find hers.

“I don’t know when it happened,” she said finally. “I just looked up one day and realized you weren’t a bit anymore. You were the best part of my day.”

His eyes closed. “God.”

“And the stupid part?” She laughed, but it cracked halfway. “I wasn’t supposed to catch feelings for someone pretending to love me.”

Ollie turned to her, really turned this time. His voice was raw when he said, “I wasn’t pretending.”

Her breath hitched.

“I thought I was,” he said, softer now. “But then you started noticing the small things. Like how I tap the wheel when I’m anxious. How I can’t sleep before qualifying unless someone’s talking to me. How I eat gummy bears by color even though I swear I don’t.”

“I noticed,” she whispered.

“I know.” He gave a small, crooked smile. “That’s when I knew it was real. Because you weren’t looking at the driver. You were just… looking at me.”

She swallowed hard, her hands curling into the hem of her oversized shirt. “So what now?”

He reached for her hand, finally, intertwining their fingers with a kind of certainty that made her chest ache.

“I don’t want to fake anything anymore,” he said. “Not the hand-holding. Not the late-night calls. Not the way I look at you and forget there’s a world outside of you.”

Tears threatened, but she blinked them away.

“Me neither.”

They sat like that for a while—just holding hands, forehead against forehead, wrapped in something they didn’t need to perform.

It didn’t matter how it had started.

It only mattered that somehow, in the middle of all the pretending, they’d fallen into something real.

And neither of them wanted to get back up.

Olliebearman & yourusername posted:

Caption: The Breakup Pact failed. Gloriously

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Word Count: 1.5k

[benzedrine-calmstheitch]

So I saw The Apprentice (2024) today, and came on this site to look for screen caps or gifs to reblog. But what I’ve found is a lot of publicity photos of Sebastian Stan and a few interviews about the film, but… nothing of the film itself. Which makes me think most of his fans who are blogging about him being in it aren’t actually watching it. And yknow, fair, it’s not an appealing log line, I get it.

But 1) he’s really good in it. And, more importantly, 2) it’s a good film and obviously Very Relevant right now!

I don’t know I just think at this point it’s such a given for some of us that he’s awful as much as it’s a given for others that he’s a Success, and these two groups of people have entirely forgotten to actually care about the fact that what we separately think is not the same thing. We should care about that! We should want this film! We should not be so averse to the complexity of human beings!

[pokeberry5]

fellas, is it gay to give up a guaranteed future with the girl of your dreams and the collective happiness of most of the people in your life for the sake of one homie?

redraw of THE page from chap. 275:

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

aroallo rep in my trans horror book ? more likely than you think <33

[tj-crochets]

So my little brother and I are not allowed to be on the same team for family game night when we play games like Taboo, because most of the time we share a brain cell and the rest of the family has decided it's an unfair advantage. Today, I was trying to remember the word hummus but completely blanked, so what I said was: "Cabbage. No, hermitage" And my brother guessed "Brussels sprouts?" "No, it's a brown goo" I said, but my brother heard "it's a round goo" "Hummus!" he said "that explains the green from cabbage" "It was hummus, but hummus isn't green????" "Oh I was thinking of guacamole" So like. Even when he and I are thinking of totally different things we can still come up with the same word lol

[ricelover247]

looks up. blinks blearily. scifi series review in the tags (not real review) (not verified) (i have been awake for a very large number of hours)

[aelswiths]

AELSWITH (ripping my heart out and destroying me 😭😭) IN 1x07

[halfbaked00q]

in spite of what the rather.. freeform and haphazard nature of like all of my posts here may lead you to believe, I am actually really good with grammar and formatting. Was hired at my last job specifically because my ex-boss was so impressed with my writing abilities, in fact. just for the record ;-;

[silly-stings]

"you better not be shrignold doing his makeup in the mirror when i get there"

me:

[david-watts]

I don't want to talk about this too much for a few reasons but firstly. incredible how different things can seem if you're not suffering symptoms. truly the 'nothing in life matters' meme but replace it with 'I know nothing about my favourite guy (t. e.)'. but still hole in brain aside most of that was suffering symptoms as bad of an excuse as either of those are

[asterdeer]

I had a dream where I was being held hostage in Corado Springs by James Dobson and Paul McCusker in the Focus on the Family compound, and they had to take my phone away bc I kept trying to torment them by reading aloud from your gay AiO fan fic.

akjfhsdkjhfsdksjfhsds HOWLING. you weren't trapped in there with them, they were trapped in there with you (and also by proxy with me)!!! 10000/10 dream, i wish it was a short film

[wyrmwizzard]

I went to a little pottery festival in a small town close to mine this morning, and I obviously understand I'm a visually alt/queer looking person living in the deep south. Yes. I get that. But the whole time I felt like a horrible fart everyone was desperately trying to pretend they didn't smell. I had a lovely conversation with a Spanish lady I bought a mug from, but many of the vendors desperately avoided my eye contact, and a few flat out ignored me. Which is baffling, do you even want my money?? my scary gay money?

[bananasofthorns]

hey guys did you know that. apparently. if you don't buy anything through amazon for 6+ months. your account goes dormant and. apparently. the easiest way to fix this is just to make a new account. and have your old one deleted. apparently.

[rigginsstreet]

why do older family members get mad when you have no relationship with them like sir *i* was the child for the bulk of your time knowing me and you made zero effort to foster any sort of long lasting relationship dont be mad when we're not close now that im an adult

[softgrungeprophet]

i have to say i really do agree in general with posts on the need to educate oneself and that you are responsible to some extent for continued learning and growth but i do think dismissing the issues with the US public school system is unhelpful especially because frankly, positioning education in the context of what is functionally, as foucault noted, Prison Lite (especially for the black and brown and particularly poor kids) does not encourage curiosity and often takes kids who like to learn and teaches them to hate it

i mean even just college, how many people get burnt out by college and like... stop reading? and that's a comparatively privileged (and extremely pressured) form of paid education, not like underfunded public elementary schools or whatever where for example kids in special ed are simply not taught and IEPs are in constant violation (college has a lot of the same structural issues though, especially for disabled students and students of color)

there is a powerful inequality in the US school system and i don't think it's particularly useful to simply pretend that every flaw in ignorance is some kind of ingrained aspect of "stupid bad people who don't pay attention" like i'm sorry that most 14 year olds don't respond well to being trapped inside a building without air conditioning for 6 hours a day, sitting in hard chairs, using textbooks that are 20 years out of date, and if you have a learning disability or adhd or anything like that you basically get abandoned.

i don't say this as some kind of like, free excuse for people to not ever try to learn anything but it is very much a part of the larger explanation and I don't think you can really talk about self education if you are completely unwilling to acknowledge that there is more to it than people just being lazy lol especially considering the socially charged implications of productivity, "laziness," education and poverty as they entangle

also just like... if you refuse to acknowledge a problem and make it a wholly personal issue then you are also refusing to correct the very real inequalities and issues that do exist.

[kittykatninja321]

Ok so the way I see it I don't think Talia would claim Jason as her son like even if the Lost Days #6 Incident (tm) is not a factor being an al Ghul is a family curse in and of itself and she cares about him enough to not drag him into that. Like I know Talia's characterization got massacred for Damien angst reasons but as of right now in either version of canon one can assume that her relationship with Jason is significantly less volatile than her relationship with her actual son. We never see them meet post-Red-Hoodification but even if they never spoke to each other again they left off on decent terms which is leagues above the whole cloning and disowning situation she has with Damien. A situation that arose because of League heir and family legacy reasons. I think Jason decidedly being Not Her Son means that they dodged several al Ghul family curse bullets