Formula 1 | One Shots (1)

I Don't Recognize You Anymore | Lando Norris

Authors Note:  This storyline was requested by user: coralestappen_

⚠️ 18+ Warning for suicidal thoughts/behaviors. 
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Lando was hunched over the sink, sweat droplets trickling down his forehead. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. His bloodshot eyes, the dark circles, the pain was all visible. 2023 had not been good to Lando and it was starting to catch up with him. Another podium slipped from his fingers in Austria. Once a happy-go-lucky guy, now a mere shell of self despair. It had truly all become too much for little Lando Norris.

He was supposed to go out to dinner with some oft he guys but he'd rather wallow in self pity in the confines of his hotel room. He instantly regretted not going out, looking back in the mirror. Hot tears blurred his vision and his breathing became erratic. 

"You little fucking crybaby" he said out loud to his own reflection. His hands turned into balled fists. Truthfully Lando hated catching his reflection these days. He didn't recognize himself and it was a reminder that things weren't actually okay. The mirror was taunting him, mocking him with his greatest insecurities:

"Overhyped"
"Not good enough"
"Just a pretty face"
"Arrogant"
"Playboy"
"Lando NoWins"

"STOP IT!" he screamed. The voices got louder, consuming him. He irrationally took a fist to the mirror, as it shattered into a million pieces around him. Lando watched as the blood spilled from his knuckles onto the porcelain white sink top, staining it. With his other hand, his fingers traced over the cuts on his knuckles. Something in that moment changed inside of Lando. The only problem was he couldn't feel the pain, thus setting forth a new outlet for his emotions....one that he would eventually need saving from.

Lando was spiraling after his moment with the mirror. The voices in his head didn't stop, in fact they got louder. He was more than half-way through the 2023 season and it was nothing but missed podiums and handful of points. He tried his best to stay off of social media, not read the horrible things people had been saying about him, but it was easier said than done. 

One night he went into a rabbit hole on F1 twitter and he wished he never had. Sports fans, specifically F1 fans were ruthless. Old-school McLaren fans were criticizing him for his lack of results this season, claiming even his rookie teammate Oscar was better than him. Other fans were frustrated by his 'female fandom' and how its corrupted the sport. Lando couldn't control the narrative to any of this, but it all still added to the pile of never ending disappointment, pushing him deeper into an inescapable dark hole...the dark hole which had become his mind.

When it wasn't a race weekend, he'd lock himself up in his Monaco apartment, hardly coming out. He was sinking deeper into the void, finding comfort in it. On a particularly rainy night, Lando paced back and forth in his apartment, the voices haunting his mind again. A bottle of whiskey was tempting him from the cabinet. He figured if the voices wouldn't go away, he could drown them out with the mind numbing burn of the liquor. 

One swig of whiskey turned into seven, but the liquor had the opposite effect of what Lando hoped for. There was new voices taunting him, gaslighting him into doing something he had never actually contemplated, until now that is. 

"You won't do it" 
"You don't have the balls to do it"

He needed to take back control. He dragged his feet to bathroom, avoiding his own reflection. He opened a drawer and withdrew a hidden toiletry bag. The contents of the toiletry bag had followed him from Austria. He never thought he'd actually open the bag up, but here he was with his tear stained cheeks and drunken thoughts.