Formula 1 | One Shots (1)

Running Up That Hill | Lando Norris

Author's Note: if you're reading this, you're really cute and I hope you have the best day 🥰

warning: i'm sorry
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Lando sat in the corner of McLaren's motorhome, hiding away from the noise. His gaze was fixed on nothing in and the infamous smirk he always had, was now a fake smile he plastered on his face during race weekends. 

The media frenzy that followed his unexpected championship contention had turned every aspect of his life into a circus. He never expected to be fighting for the title, he was just happy to be racing well and outperforming his own expectations.

But no matter how well he performed, it was never enough. If he finished second, he should've been first. If he won, it was because the car was fast and he was lucky. The pressure was relentless. The words always spiraled around him, eating away at what little confidence he had in himself. 

"Lando, press conference in five minutes," his PR manager called out. He nodded, almost robotically, slipping on the facade he'd perfected. The smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. The one everyone believed was genuine. But deep down, he was drowning.

When he stepped into the press conference, the questions came at him like daggers.

"Lando, do you think you have what it takes to beat Max?"

"What do you have to say about your fangirls talking smack about Max?"

"You got lucky in Miami, you just have a fast car."

Every word drilled into his psyche, chipping away at the confidence he had at the start of the season. He answered as best he could, dancing around the actual things he wanted to say. It was always easy to spew hate and criticize drivers, when in reality no one else would be able to handle the pressures.  

That same night, the voices wouldn't leave him alone.

He sat in his hotel room in Austria, after a dramatic DNF with Max on the track. The bottle of vodka on the table stared back at him, a silent invitation. He'd told himself he wouldn't go there, not again. But tonight, the weight was too much. The burden of being Lando Norris had become unbearable. Tonight, he wanted to be someone else, anyone else.

His hand shook as he poured a glass. The first sip burned, but it was a welcomed distraction. The second went down smoother. By the third, the numbness began to settle in and for the first time in weeks, the voices went away.

He leaned back on the couch, his head flipping through the years of all his racing memories.  Where had they gone? How had it all turned into this suffocating, inescapable nightmare?

Hours passed, or maybe minutes, he didn't know. Time had lost all meaning. The bottle was nearly empty now and so was he. Tears he didn't know he'd been holding back poured out, hot and relentless. He sobbed into the silence, his body shaking. He wasn't just crying for the pressures of the season or the criticism. He was crying for the parts of himself he'd lost along the way. 

The next morning he woke up on the couch, the vodka glass still in his hand. His head throbbed, and his mouth tasted of regret. He knew he couldn't keep going like this, but he didn't know how to stop. No one had noticed he was falling apart. Not his team. Not his friends. Not even himself until it was too late.

The next race weekend was no better...the hauntingly fake smile was back. The cameras snapped it, the fans cheered for it and the media dissected it. But no one saw the cracks beneath. No one saw the man behind the mask, screaming for someone, anyone...to see him.

Because if no one noticed soon, he feared there might be nothing left to save.

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