The faceless number 18 - the wild wolf and his pack

obsessed

*Lance*

I liked the silence.

That silence that spread not only across my room, but me as well. It was one of the advantages of being a faceless driver. Nobody got on your nerves. They were all a little afraid of me and somehow that was funny. At least most of the time.

Sometimes it was lonely being a faceless driver, too.

I had no one to really get close to. I was actually alone most of the time. Because anyone who got close to me was a potential source of danger. Anyone who knew my identity could expose it. Something that I, as a faceless driver, wanted to avoid at all costs. Most of the time it was a real relief that nobody knew who was under the helmet. I could move freely outside the Formula 1 world and nobody even suspected who I was.

But as soon as I let someone get close to me, things got complicated. In the beginning, I could usually bridge the gap with lies. If I met someone far away from Formula 1, I could pretend that I had nothing to do with this world. And most of the time it went quite well in the beginning, but when I started to travel more and more and sometimes didn't get in touch for hours, it usually got complicated. Then I usually ended the whole thing. It wasn't worth it.

And so I enjoyed the silence for myself before I had to get out right away.

We would have a meeting at the beginning of the season. Two new mechanics would be joining the team now, right before the first race. It had taken them longer than expected with the application process, so they were just arriving now. Too late for my taste, but no one had asked about that. One of them would join my team, the other went to Fernando.

I just hoped that they hadn't put someone on my team again, who would duck his head right after two races and whine about how tough I was.

We weren't in a petting zoo here. We were in Formula 1. This was about more than just racing a little bit. This was about precision. About accuracy. And I expected top performance from my crew, just as I did from myself. If you wanted to work in Formula 1, you had to be one of the best. And I didn't demand anything from my team that I didn't demand from myself.

It may be that many of my people left quickly, but those who stayed were among the best in the sport. They were the ones I wanted to have around me.

A timid knock on the door and before she spoke I recognized Lilly. She was still afraid of me "18?", yet she was one of the few who didn't have to be. I was not a monster. Just not particularly talkative. Not particularly friendly. But I wasn't a monster either. Especially not to her.

"Yes?", I replied, pulling up my mask.

"We're ready to go. Everyone's just waiting for you.", she said cautiously, but didn't dare to enter.

"I'm coming.", I grumbled and put on my cap.

They knew only my eyes. The base of my nose. The base of my hair. The rest of my face was always hidden.

I wore the tube scarf whenever I wasn't in my race suit and not wearing the balaclava. It had been quite disconcerting at first, but I had gotten used to it. It was worth the freedom.

I pushed myself up from my sofa and opened the door.

Lilly pulled up, as usual. The petite blonde woman always looked at me with those anxious eyes. She had those pale blue eyes that reminded you of the sky, on a calm morning, just before the clouds rolled in. She was so afraid of me that sometimes she even started to shake.

I liked the charisma I had and that people respected me for that alone, but I didn't like that my own team was afraid of me. I was not a monster. I had never hurt anyone here. At least not intentionally. I might have done it with words, but I never meant to. I didn't want my team to be afraid of me. They had to trust me, just as I had to trust them. But with Lilly, I would probably never reach that point.