f1byjessie - Tumblr blog

f1byjessie · 12 days

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part thirteen.

Lando places third in the Australian Grand Prix. The buzz of lingering adrenaline leaves him keyed up with pent-up energy and, coupled with a few mouthfuls of champagne from the post-race celebration, the part of his brain that stops and thinks through all of his actions before he does them is trapped in a thick, foggy haze.

You━ overjoyed to see him back on the podium and still thrumming with the nervous excitement that always comes from such a close race━ aren’t faring much better.

You’re thoroughly drunk on your happiness and Lando’s infectious exuberance when he meets you back in McLaren’s garage━ high on the euphoric bliss of his success━ only serves as an echo chamber that further encourages the thoughtless choices made under the influence of intoxicating glee.

The post-race glow that shrouds him doesn’t help, either. He’s damp with sweat and champagne, glistening beneath the lights of the garage as he’s all but manhandled around to receive a congratulating clap on the shoulder or pat on the head from every mechanic and engineer who can get their hands on him. His hair is plastered against his forehead, and his fireproofs cling to the curves and angles of his body. His cheeks are still flushed from the exertion of the race, an innocently rosy hue against his tanned skin.

There’s a grin splitting across his face, wide and unfaltering. His eyes squint with the force of it and you imagine his cheeks must be aching by now, but he seems undeterred and, when his gaze finds you tucked away in the corner with your camera poised to capture it all, it seems to grow even wider despite the seeming impossibility.

He approaches you with your name on his lips, whispered like a prayer that’s meant for your ears only. You don’t know if you actually hear him say anything at all over the din of cheers and chatter, or if you’re just remembering how he sounds in the solitude of a hotel room━ when you can pretend like the world outside doesn’t exist and let the pretenses of your relationship fall away to reveal the gnarled claws of your hearts reaching desperately towards one another.

He reaches for you now, a comforting warmth ghosting across your waist. You have just enough sense left to transform his intimate touch into a friendly hug, but the weight of his hand pressing against the small of your back and the tightness with which you wrap your arms around him betray the truth.

“Congratulations,” you murmur into his ear before pulling away. Your hands linger on his shoulders, and you can’t help it when your eyes flicker to his lips━ a deep urge settles within you, a desire to stake your claim here in front of the entire team and show them all that Lando is yours and you are his, despite what the articles written about you and Garrett might claim━ but you relinquish your hold on him when he’s beckoned away by Andrea and resign yourself to maintaining the secrecy still.

Cloak and dagger aside, being in a relationship with Lando has been surprisingly easy. Surprising in the sense that you expected there to be more conflict━ more lingering resentment or uncertainty from all that happened. But the reality is that you both slipped into your new roles rather effortlessly because the only real thing that changed was the label.

And the kissing, of course. There’s a lot more kissing.

Even still, there isn’t too much of a difference between curling up beside him in on a couch and running your fingers through his curls while listening to him gossip about the drama of the other drivers, and snuggling into his side and holding his hand while he talks about his day.

There are still things he’s making up for and he knows that, but somehow the jump between what you were before that night in Bahrain and what you are now, after, feels right.

You consider it, the jump, to be a leap of faith, and it’s brought you to the realization that the life you’d been living━ the life you’d convinced yourself to be content with━ hadn’t been enough and would’ve never been enough. There would’ve always been a part of you that remained empty, a part of you that you hadn’t realized existed until Lando soothed away the ache of its longing. You think, without him, it would’ve been left wanting and waiting for forever.

But that’s not a future that you can envision anymore, because you do have him, and he makes sure to remind you of that fact every night when you’re both safely hidden away from prying eyes.

You were, of course, still careful throughout the rest of your time in Bahrain. Maybe too careful, with the way you both avoided each other in the garage. The entire weekend of the Grand Prix, Oscar had looked like he’d wanted to ask about it━ to pick it apart and figure out how to put it back together like some sort of puzzle in a way that was so uniquely him. You’re better now, sometime during Saudi Arabia you both managed to find the middle ground between ignoring one another entirely and being so smitten with each other that you can’t look away. Oscar still looks like he wants to ask, but he also seems content to observe whatever he’s convinced himself he’s watching unfold on its own.

Everybody else is used to the closeness you share with Lando and the years of history backing your friendship. They don’t bat a lash at the fluctuations between the two of you. Most of them have seen, or at least heard about, the spats in the early days, but all of them have witnessed the attachment you share which makes it that much easier to slip, unquestioned, into Lando’s driver room.

He enters the room himself a few minutes later and seems entirely unsurprised to see you waiting for him.

He takes you in through pupils blown wide with euphoria. He’s still twitchy with the high of his win. “You gonna congratulate me for real this time?”

You beckon him closer with a curl of your finger, an instruction he’s eager to follow. He spares a fleeting moment to lock the door behind him, and then slinks over to where you’re leaned up against the wall opposite the door.

You pull him in by the collar of his fireproofs and press a slow, searing kiss to his lips.

They’re chapped━ he’s been licking them━ but it doesn’t take away from the sweetness of the champagne you can taste in his mouth or the heat that swells in your stomach when he makes a punched out, desperate noise.

His hands shake as they come up to clutch at your shirt and when you pull away, he’s breathing heavily. The pink tinge that had faded from his cheeks is back, and his gaze flickers back and forth between staring into your eyes and staring down at your lips.

“Congratulations, Lando,” you purr, before releasing your hold on his collar and gently pushing him in the direction of the bathroom door. “Now, go shower. The faster you do that, the faster we can get back to the hotel and we can celebrate.”

Lando all but stumbles into the washroom, sparing glances over his shoulder as he goes like he’s worried you’ll disappear. You give him a wave before he lets the door close behind him, and then you wait.

It feels like your fault. You know it isn’t━ or, if it is, then Lando carries just as much blame as you do━ but it feels like you should’ve known better.

You’re the one who set the rules, you’re the one who established the necessity of being careful. No PDA in public, whether it be hand holding, kissing, hugging or whatever. No anything anywhere that someone might be able to see, no matter how inconceivable it might be. It was for Lando’s safety as much as it was for yours, because you were desperate to keep him as far away as you possibly could from the danger of Garrett Ward and his fans.

But you got comfortable. You should’ve put your foot down when he’d crowded against you━ should’ve waited until you were inside the hotel at the very least and not standing in the middle of a parking building━ but you didn’t, too wrapped up in the heat of the moment and still buzzing with the rush of desire from the implication of more that you’d promised in his driver room. Now, you’re staring down at undeniable evidence of a secret that has the power to leave you ruined, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Honestly, it was all going well━ too well.

You don’t typically believe in the luck or karmic balance, but it feels hard to deny their existence now when you’re faced with proof of their work. With so much good fortune used up in such a short amount of time━ your fledgling romance, being able to keep it hidden so well, and now Lando’s win━ you feel like you should’ve anticipated some sort of catastrophe to strike and balance it all out again.

Garrett Ward’s name flashing across your screen is the harbinger of your continued misfortune. He’s made himself scarce the last few weeks and the radio silence on his end has been an enjoyable vacation away from the almost constant reminder of the deal you’re trapped in, but the incoming call from him leaves you shaken and uneven, like your legs have been kicked out from beneath you and now you’re in freefall.

When you answer, he gets straight to the point.

“We had an agreement.”

“Garrett━”

“So,” he interrupts, voice stoney and cold. “Care to explain why I woke up this morning to my agent informing me of a very incriminating picture of you and Lando Norris sucking each other’s faces off?”

You aren’t “sucking each other’s faces off”, but the picture is incriminating. There’s no denying that it’s you wrapped up in another man’s arms and kissing someone who is very obviously not Garrett. You could try and argue that the kissing isn’t technically on the lips, but you doubt that would make much of a difference when the intimacy is plain as day.

“That’s a stretch━”

“Stretch or not,” he interrupts again, “you have royally fucked up and I expect you to find a way to fix it. Unless, of course, you’ve forgotten about why you agreed to this all in the first place?”

You’ve never heard Garrett ever sound so angry before. He’s been annoyed and pissy, and he’s snapped at you with cutting remarks and sneering derision like your presence alone pains him, but he’s never been angry. The dark undertone of how he speaks and the thickening of his sharp accent forces something cold to settle in your chest.

“I don’t care that you got what you wanted out of this whole scheme, Y/N,” he continues, snarling your name. “Quite frankly, if I cared any less about you and the happiness you’ve found with Norris, I’d stop breathing. But I haven’t gotten what I’m after, yet, so you better not fuck this up anymore than you already have or you can say goodbye to everything━ Norris included.”

There’s a finality to the way he says it, like he’ll personally ensure your happiness is destroyed if he doesn’t get his own.

Garrett is aware of what he can get away with. You’ve learned this through the time you’ve begrudgingly spent with him. He doesn’t fear the consequences of his actions because the likelihood of there ever actually being any consequences is slim, and he has such an obsessively devoted fanbase that they’d turn a blind eye to any wrong doings he’s accused of.

All Garrett has to do is tell them to jump and they’re tripping over themselves to ask him how high.

You can’t believe you ever thought you could get anything out of him. It seems so unforgivably stupid now, to have tried to stoop to his level out of your pettiness towards the situation with Lando. The fact that you ever felt it justified to risk admitting your feelings on the matter with him is appalling. Garrett is a conniving, manipulative prick and you think the only person truly capable of loving him would be his mother out of a maternal devotion to her child. There is nothing redeeming about him or what he does. He is useless in every way, and you’re tired of him having so much control over you, especially when a good chunk of that control was handed to him through your own fears.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Garrett.”

He scoffs, like it’s obvious. “Because I can? Because I’ll do whatever it takes? Manchester City is my team, and I’ll be damned if I let them kick me off because a few people take issue with how I keep my company.”

“I don’t think it’s all that unreasonable to not want to associate with someone who’s a notorious prick,” you bite back.

“Maybe I am a prick,” you can practically hear the sneer in his voice, and it doesn’t take much to envision what it looks like on his face. “But I’m a prick who plays for the greatest English team in the world. The trophies prove as much.”

It feels like a slap in the face to the players that actually got those trophies for the club. Players like Jack, Erling, Kevin, Bernardo, and so many others━ who actually put in the blood, sweat, and tears that were necessary to earn them their Treble win in the prior season. Players who care about their club and team beyond the notoriety the name gives them, or how good it’ll look in the future when their Wikipedia page says they played for Manchester City under the tutelage of a legend like Pep Guardiola. Players who care about the people behind the scenes━ the coaches and physios that ensure they can do their job and do it at peak performance, and the staff like you who don’t really affect their ability to play but who still have a role in keeping everything in motion.

“You didn’t even help them get those trophies!” You exclaim, happy Lando left earlier that morning when the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and Melbourne was bathed in the dawning light. It gives you the ability now to tear into Garrett without his concerned hovering, to be as viscious and cutthroat as you want without fear of Lando judgement.

“You were on loan to a Championship team all of last season,” you continue, “and you only got called back because of your injury. You weren’t game ready until February of this year, and even now you don’t start. You’ve been back on the pitch a whopping two times, and both of them were for the FA Cup when Pep wanted to rest up the players that actually matter. Everything City has gotten they earned without you. They don’t need you at all, Garrett. You’re useless to them, and you’re useless to everyone else without them.”

He’s silent for a moment, and you can tell you’ve struck a nerve. As much as Garrett pretends to be infallible and nonplussed, he is still a human and he has insecurities of his own, and you’d bet every chunk of change you’ve ever earned that you just managed to find his.

When he speaks again, his voice is low and dangerous. The blazing inferno of your anger dwindles down to a flickering candle flame in the face of his own rage, like you’ve been doused with a bucket of frigid water.

“And you’re useless to me━” he says, “━if you don’t find a way to fix this mess you’ve created. So either you do what you’re told, or I’ll follow through on what I promised and make you so miserable that you’ll never feel even a fragment of happiness ever again. Have I made myself clear?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

He laughs. “It’s nothing personal, love. I’ll be in touch. Cheers.”

INSTAGRAM.

liked by garrettward, landonorris, and 318,149 others

tagged: garrettward

yourusername i was made aware today of a set of photos going around featuring me and my coworker in a situation that could be mistaken as compromising. i’m coming here to tell you that me and garrett are still very much together and still very happy to be with one another. lando is a long time friend of mine and i was congratulating him on a well deserved victory. a kiss on the cheek is not implicit of romantic interest, and i will not be made to feel ashamed for supporting my friend in a way that is unique to us. we, like all friends, have quirks to our relationship, and those quirks are no one’s business but our own. lando is very dear to me, but i can have male friends and still be very much in love with my boyfriend. as proof, here are pictures of the day me and garrett spent in london on a date after i got back from melbourne.

view all 2,145 comments

user i was actually kind of excited at the idea of her being with lando… 🫤

↳ user IKR??? idk, her relationship with garrett has always seemed to surface level. her and lando have YEARS of friendship under their belt and i gen thought they were already dating when i got into f1

↳ user so glad i’m not the only one who thought this!! seeing the pictures of her with ward actually shocked me bc i thought her and norris were in a not-so-secret secret relationship already

user THEY COULD NEVER MAKE ME HATE YOU Y/N 🙌🙌🙌

user if my bf kissed another girl on the cheek and hugged her like that, congratulations or not, i’d be livid.

↳ user just say you’re insecure and move on. not everyone is out to cheat on their partner, but it says a lot about you that your first instinct when you see two friends sharing a moment is that you automatically assume they’re romantically involved 🙄

user ok but those pictures look pretty damning…..

↳ user i ain’t never seen “friends” hold one another like that is all i’m saying 👀👀

↳ user friends can be intimate without the intimacy being romantic, but in this singular case i do think there was mayhaps a bit more going on than just friendly congratulations

user ooooooh I know Lando has got to be fuming rn 😂

user seeing this comments makes me so afraid for the future generation. since when did we condone cheating?

↳ user are you actually fucking blind?? 🤨🤨 you’re commenting this on a post where she is literally telling us she didn’t cheat and that her and lando are just friends. it’s literally a he-said-she-said situation between the paparazzi and her and lando, and quite frankly i’m choosing to believe the people actually involved because the paparazzi are notorious for capturing things without context and painting situations in a certain light purely to drum up drama and excitement.

↳ user yeah but if someone’s cheating and they get caught they aren’t gonna admit to cheating? especially if they can just use the excuse that they’re friends with the person they’re having an affair with?

↳ user i think it’s super telling how the media views women if the first impression is to assume a woman with a male friend is cheating on her partner. god forbid women have friends that aren’t exclusively female 🙄😮‍💨

user GARRETT GET OUT OF HERE LET US Y/NLANDO GIRLIES HAVE OUR MOMENT OF TRUTH 😭😭😭

user i know my girl y/n wasn’t a cheater

user is it morally wrong to hope that y/n really is cheating on garrett? I’ve always gotten a bad vibe from him from the beginning, especially when he did nothing to defend her when his crazy fans were bashing her in the comments and literally sending her death threats. I’m not saying cheating is okay, but i don’t think i would blame her in a situation like this, especially when lando is her best friend and has been since like 2019

↳ user i don’t think it’s morally wrong persay… i don’t think i would blame her either for cheating in this situation, but i also don’t want her to be associated with the type of stigma that comes from being exposed to the public as a cheater. especially since her career is as public as it is and relies so much on having an online presence

↳ user honestly i just hate garrett ward and i’ve wanted her and lando together since 2021 🤷‍♀️

user why does the caption to this post seem so scripted…?

INSTAGRAM.

liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren, and 594,950 others

landonorris can’t tag who took these pictures for me cuz we might get accused of cheating 🤷‍♂️

view all 2,145 comments

oscarpiastri do you think people suspect we’re also having an affair? 🤔

↳ landonorris they can never stop our love, oscar! 😩

user MR NORRIS DID NOT COME TO PLAY 🫢🫢

user i love you lando pls never change

user i just know bro was FUMING when he saw y/n’s post denying the rumours

↳ user mans has been trying to shoot his shot with a babe like her since 2019 💀 if i were him i would be too

user okay so do we think there’s actually smth there or are they really just friends?

↳ user my two cents is that they’re together and garrett knows but doesn’t care and just doesn’t care so long as the public doesn’t find out about it

↳ user what??? no wtf why would any guy, but especially a guy like garrett ward, let his girlfriend be with another man???

↳ user because garrett ward is an infamous cheater and he probably is seeing other women too? because garrett would be a hypocrite to condemn his gf if she cheats when he’s cheated on several women in the past and not even faced any consequences?

user god what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when all this drama is happening

↳ user I have never wanted to be in the room where it happens more than this moment right now

user 🧡🧡🧡 LANDO PODIUM LET’S GOOOOOOO!!! 🧡🧡🧡

user bro got the trophy and (almost) got the girl

↳ user he’ll have his first win AND the girl by the end of the season, i’m calling it

user so disgusting to see you condone cheating. what happened to bro code??

↳ user be so fucking frrrrrr omg. he’s not condoning cheating, he’s making fun of ppl who think he’s having an affair with someone who has a boyfriend just bc they’re friends, bc for some reason society forbids boy-girl friend duos. grow up. “bro code” is so middle school.

user bro wants us to know it was real so bad but he knows he’d get in trouble if he out right told us

user lando is either telling us we’re all dumb for thinking they’re together, or they’re actually together and we’re all dumb for not knowing

↳ user he’s a paradox and his only purpose in life is to make things chaotically confusing for the rest of us 🤦

user the filters on these photos just SCREAM y/n...

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @leclercsluv @f1luvur @formulaal @a-disturbing-self-reflection @starlightpierre @chezmardybum @marshmummy @405rry @sideboobrry11 @d3kstar @mcmuppet @happylittlereader @casperlikej @5starl1ght @bellezaycafe @whentheautumnleavesfall @mess-is-my-aesthetic @ssprayberrythings @landosgirlxoxo @lifelessfan @81ja @wcnorris @a-disturbing-self-reflection (CLOSED).

━━ a/n: please disregard any typos or mistakes! i wrote this in bits and fragments and wanted to get it posted as soon as i could, so i only briefly scanned through it after i finished. but i hope you enjoy it! i am genuinely so sorry it took me so long to finally get this out here, my job has been a bit hectic and it's a lot more physically demanding than i had initially thought, so i'm pretty wiped out by the time i get home and i usually just veg out and rot on tiktok or something until i feel like i can turn my brain back on again. but here's to hoping i can get back into the swing of things here soon as i get more used to my schedule!

#formula 1 #formula one #f1 #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #formula one imagine #f1 x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula one x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #social media au #lando norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris imagine #ln4 #oscar piastri

254 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 17 days

Text

Hiya! I am so sorry it's been so long without any updates, I feel terrible for that.

I've been in the process of getting and now starting a new job (it's at a flower shop/garden center, so I'm having my fanfiction moment haha), but because of that most of my free time has been spent getting caught up on everything else that I've put off.

I'm still chipping away at the next update for my Lando series, and I've also been getting some words down here and there for the rewrite of my Oscar series and my Charles series. I'm trying my best, I promise! It might just take me a little longer to get adjusted to this new schedule and workload before I'm able to get back into the swing of things.

Thank you so much to everyone who's been patient about this!

#jessie speaks

13 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 21 days

Note

PART 12 *waving my hands around in the air* !!!!! THEM IN THE ROOM IN THE MORNING IM SO☹️☹️☹️they’re so precious i’m fragile i stg. the perfect amount teasing and cheeky behavior with serious and meaningful conversations 🫶also just one of my favorite little moments was lando going “you’re spiraling” even though she wasn’t saying anything or really doing anything outwardly (that we know of as the readers), yet he knows her so well that he KNEW she was getting in her head about it - like that is just so🤲

HIM SAYING HE’D WALK ????? i just fell to my knees in a walmart. HIM SAYING HE JUST KNEW FROM THE FIRST TIME THEY MET ???? i’m curled up on the side of the road. i know there’s more shit they have to figure out, but i love them sm together already😭

the way i started STRESSING the moment the ig post came up😭my brain did not register the time skip and i was like “well damn. that plan went out the window quick”. i cant decide between what i think happened: either they actually fucked up and there’s a reason they weren’t thinking about PDA while in a place where they could be photographed and how they have to like scramble to pick up the pieces, ORRRRR it’s all part of a strategic plan before y/n and her lawyers start taking this shit to garrett🤌bc my brain can’t stop thinking about how this type of post is how garrett and y/n first put their relationship in the public eye😼plus i think it’s totally something lando would think is funny asf and want to do - rub it in that he got the girl and garrett is a POS lmao

N E WAYZ sorry for rambling, but if you couldn’t tell, i LOVED this part !!! always looking forward to more 🫶🫶

Never apologize for rambling! I always appreciate getting your asks and I love hearing your thoughts on things! So please feel free to ramble away! 😊

I'm still patting myself on the back for part twelve. The original plan was to have her push back against the idea of being with Lando more than she did, and then the fact that she'd just had a one-night stand with her best friend would be an added stressor, she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it and neither would Lando, and that mutual inability to get one another out of their heads and the following admittance of that would be what got them together. But I think I prefer the way it went a lot more. It was mostly because having Lando comfort her as she spirals and having him listen to her concerns and then come back each time with how he'll protect her against all of the potential consequences was just such a wholesome moment, but I also was just so eager to move past Bahrain and get on to the actual races 😅.

I'm so happy that you picked up on the parallels with the IG post though! I've talked about it before, but I love symbolism and thematic parallels are hands down one of my favorite writing mechanisms to make use of. The paparazzi act as the other side of the coin to Y/N— she takes photos, they take photos, but the ethics regarding both are completely opposite because one is with the consent and awareness of the subject and the other isn't. Similarly, the relationship she has with Garrett is drastically different from the relationship she has with Lando, but both of them are exposed via the paparazzi which, in my opinion, further highlights how each relationship was started. One was started with the intention of being exposed to the world for publicity and PR, whereas the other was started with the intention of being hidden and just for them.

But that's all I'll say on that because I'm worried if I keep talking about it I'll wind up spoiling part thirteen haha!

As always, thank you for taking the time to let me know what you think. I always look forward to what you have to say! 🫶

#jessie replies

3 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 28 days

Text

A little update for you all, I'm currently in the process of rewriting my Oscar Piastri fic, He Likes My American Smile!

It's been getting some love again recently, and because of that I've been going back and rereading some of the earlier parts. That story has a special place in my heart because it was my introduction to writing fanfiction on Tumblr, but I was obviously still new to actually posting any of my works and having people interested in it on top of that, so there are aspects of it that I'm not as satisfied with as I'd like to be.

I am, of course, still working on A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, and that takes precedence, so no worries there!

The rewritten version of He Likes My American Smile is still a long way out from being posted, there's a lot to edit and revise, and I'd like to have a majority of the parts written before I start posting them, but I wanted to let anyone who's a fan of that series know to expect that in the coming month at the very least!

#jessie speaks

9 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 1 month

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part twelve.

The first coherent thing you say the morning after, as you tug your sweatshirt back over your head and resolutely ignore the sculpted planes of Lando’s abdomen while he lounges in bed and watches you, is: “This can never happen again.”

He makes an inquisitive sound. “Can this maybe wait until I’m actually awake?”

You look over your shoulder just in time to catch him yawning into his elbow, and for half a second find the drowsiness to be endearing━ the way his knuckles rub languidly at his half-lidded eyes, his scratchy morning voice, and the wild case of bedhead that’s got his curls sticking up in every direction. It’s only when your gaze finds and latches onto the dark bruise sucked onto his collarbone that you remember you can’t be entertaining this anymore than you already have, adorable sleepy morning habits be damned.

“Lando.”

At his name, he opens his eyes again and meets your stare.

“This━” you gesture between yourself and him, “━can never happen again.”

You do feel sympathetic for trying to have what’s intended to be a serious conversation so early in the morning, especially when he’d really only been woken up by you practically throwing yourself out of bed, but the gravity of the situation had slammed into you the moment you’d opened your eyes to see his peacefully slumbering face across from yours.

There isn’t actually a clause in your contract that forbids you from entering a romantic relationship with anyone else on the team━ technically, there aren’t any mentions at all about anti-fraternization rules━ but just the thought of how badly this could fuck things up for the both of you has you preemptively planning to take an ibuprofen or two the minute you make it back to your own hotel room in preparation for the nasty headache you’re sure to get.

Firable offenses aside, McLaren could just as easily cite some other reason to decide not to renew your contract at the end of the year if they deem the “partnership” between you and Lando to be too detrimental to his performance ability. You might be a good photographer, but Lando’s a great driver and he’s certainly more valuable to the team than you are. He’s a one of a kind, and you’re one of plenty in a market saturated with young talents desperate for a chance to make it big.

On top of that, you’re not even sure how ethical it is to sleep with your coworker, all things considered. It’s your job to follow him around every week and take pictures that you plaster all over social media. You’ve already gotten a glimpse of how difficult things can be in the midst of an argument, but if things turn serious━ assuming, of course, that Lando is after something serious and that this isn’t just a bit of fun meant to keep him entertained with the added convenience that you’ll be traveling with him for the foreseeable future━ what sort of added ramifications would an argument have then? You’re not sure the professionalism the two of you have managed the last few weeks prior to making up would be able to survive a messy breakup.

“You’re spiralling,” he comments, sliding out from beneath the covers of the bed. He’s very nonchalant about his nakedness.

You avert your eyes.

“So maybe it’s morally grey territory,” he continues, leisurely collecting his clothes from where they wound up strewn across the floor after being discarded amidst the night’s activities. “But we’re both consenting adults━” he tugs his sweatpants back on, “━and so long as we both stay consenting adults I don’t see what the problem is. I don’t really have any plans to be magically turned into a baby anytime soon. Unless you did?”

You stare at him incredulously, ignoring the fact that he’s still shirtless and now that he’s standing and facing you it gives a clear view of all the hickeys painted across his skin. Hickeys that you left there, and that you can remember leaving there despite attempting to shove the memories down and forget them.

He stares right back.

“In case you suddenly forgot, I’m supposed to be in a committed and exclusive relationship with someone else,” you hiss.

“Yeah, but it’s not real. You aren’t actually dating him,” he answers back with a shrug. “It’s a PR stunt, you said.”

You don’t actually care about Garrett Ward or the fake claim of faithfulness between the two of you. If there weren’t guaranteed to be nasty consequences for you, you’d let the staged relationship crash and burn in a blaze of vengeful glory. But that’s exactly what’s stopping you━ the consequences. It isn’t just your reputation on the line like it would be if you were some no-name fan who somehow managed to score lucky. If you go down, your career goes with you and that also means waving goodbye to Lando and Formula One as a whole.

Even if you managed a miracle and didn’t lose your job, the media would not look favorably upon you. At best, there would be a smattering of fans from people like Jack and Lando speaking up on your behalf who would defend you for a month or two, maybe a media outlet with a more present stance on women in sports would try to lessen the blow if the right people said the right thing. But the reality is that you could sit down and regale the whole story about Garrett’s blackmail━ starting from the very first call asking you to dinner and detailing the proof of his threats and manipulation━ and there would still be people out there painting you as the villain in his story.

You’d be designated another “bitch” who ruined the career of a perfectly good athlete, and they’d speculate into your motives, into why you chose to tear him down. It would discredit the actual wrongness of Garrett’s own actions and instead pin the blame on you and your jealousy. Or, whatever else they’d attribute it to.

So no, you don’t care about Garrett Ward or his rotten excuse for a heart. His feelings can go fuck themselves for all you care. But even still…

“The public doesn’t know that, Lando,” you start to explain. “I can’t be seen with you because, fake or not, do you know how horribly it would end for me if I were painted as some adulterous slut? They already tore me to pieces just because I was with him in the first place, can you imagine how bad it would be if it got out that I’d supposedly cheated on him? Do you know how much meaner these people would get if they somehow believed they’d been proven right about me? That the things they were saying were right all along?”

He’s silent now.

“There’s a reason I haven’t tried to get myself out of this situation already,” you continue, beginning to pace the length of the hotel room. “Like I told you yesterday, even if he makes his claims and I manage to prove him wrong, the damage to my reputation would ruin me. I’m lucky that I had McLaren to come back to and that’s what made it easier to push back on his demands, but can you imagine if I didn’t have anything lined up after that City gig? I would’ve been even more desperate to get any sort of work and Garrett absolutely would’ve capitalized on that. And I can’t keep banking on the fact that McLaren will save the day because what if one day they don’t?”

Lando crosses the distance between you and rests his hands on your shoulders, bringing your harried pacing to a stop. He looks like he’s about to give you a pep talk, and the absurdity of the thought is almost enough to make you forget about the seriousness of this entire situation and laugh. Almost. You are, unfortunately, still painfully aware of the line you’re now walking and how terrifyingly thin it is.

“McLaren would never get rid of you, so you don’t have to worry about that,” he says after a moment.

“You don’t know that,” you tell him, shaking your head and pulling free from his grasp to resume your nervous treading in another section of the room. “You can’t know that. Honestly, the backlash this could have would probably be enough to get McLaren to fire me on the spot. If not immediately, then there’d at least be enough harassment from Garrett’s fans for them to eventually decide letting me go would be the best course of action for the sake of their own reputation.”

He crosses the distance between you again, and this time pulls you into his arms entirely. He’s still warm from being beneath the covers and you soak up the comfort as much as he’s allowing you to, burying your face into the crook of his neck and reciprocating his hug by wrapping your own arms around him and grabbing at the back of his shirt.

“Obviously, this is something you’ve thought about a lot,” he starts, running his fingers up and down your back soothingly. “And it clearly stresses you out. But I really like you, Y/N. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I’ve fancied you since I met you. You walked in and it was like one of those dumb romcoms you’ve made me watch. I just… I just knew. And I wanted you to like me, too.”

You hum in acknowledgement and sag deeper into him, clutching tighter at his shirt. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Because you hated me,” he answers simply with a tiny shrug. “Or, at least, I thought you did. And then you didn’t, but we were still so new to being friends that I didn’t want to do anything to fuck it up. I got so anxious thinking about what would happen if we broke up. It would ruin the friendship, but it would also potentially ruin your career if we couldn’t both do our job and I didn’t want to fuck that up for you. So, I was content to just have you close, honestly. That was enough.”

“Until it wasn’t?”

He sighs. You feel the rise and fall of his chest more than you actually hear it. “Garrett Ward is a raging prick and I stand by all the things I’ve said about him, but maybe some of it was influenced by me thinking he’d taken you away from me. And, when I called you that night piss drunk at Daniel’s, I was projecting the anger I felt towards myself onto the people around me. I didn’t take any risks, and because of that I was convinced that I’d lost you in every way that mattered.”

He holds you a bit tighter, “And we know how I handled that.” It’s quiet and he sounds miserable. You pull back just enough to see him looking piteously out the window, a pained look painted across his features.

You release your hold on his shirt and trail your hands across his body until you can grab his face and turn his gaze back on you.

When he’s staring into your eyes, you say, “I want this, Lando. You and me. I really do, I promise. But I can’t.”

His face falls. “If you let his influence over you control every aspect of your life, then hasn’t he already won? He’s gotten what he wanted. He doesn’t need you to be desperate for a job, because he has control over you anyway.”

If it were said in any other context or by any other person, you’d bristle at the accusation that you’re letting Garrett take whatever he wants without at least attempting to put up a fight. You’ve pushed back where you can, where it’s safest, but you have to prioritize your livelihood too and if that means asking how high when he says jump, you’ll do what you must. Not that it feels good to bend to the whims of a man who gets what he wants through fear.

“I just mean━” he hurries to correct himself, as if sensing you offense, “━you shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything that brings you joy just because you’re afraid of what he might do or how the media will perceive it due to his presence in your life. You have every reason to be hesitant to fight back against the power he holds over you, you just shouldn’t have to be.”

You pull him back in and sink into his arms again, pressing your face into his chest to hide the shine of tears in your eyes.

“I can’t promise that there won’t be backlash,” he continues. “But I can tell you that McLaren will stand behind you. I’ll make sure of it. And if they don’t, I’ll walk.” He says it likes it’s nothing━ like he isn’t saying he’ll give up everything he’s worked for just for you. “I can get you a really nice lawyer, too. If you’d want one. Or, you know, if you’d want to come out about what all Ward’s done.”

The idea sounds impossible and yet it’s so close━ close enough that Lando is practically offering it to you on a silver platter. The idea of just coming out with it all and exposing the horrible things Garrett has done. You know on top of Lando’s support, Jack and the other Manchester City boys would side with you, too, and the other members of the team behind the scenes who you worked closely with throughout your time at Etihad Campus. It’s a lot of people, and by proxy you’d probably have a large amount of their fanbase as well.

It seems too good to be true.

But Lando’s offering you the chance to make it a reality.

“I’m supposed to still be mad at you right now,” you mumble into his shirt.

He huffs out a laugh, “Being mad at someone and being in love with them aren’t mutually exclusive feelings.”

“Who said anything about being in love with you?” You tease, though you’re practically melted into his arms.

“I mean,” he starts, and just from the sound of his voice you can tell he’s about to say something stupid and cheeky and it’ll make you want to slap him upside the head. “The way you treated me last night kind of implies that you at least like me pretty seriously.”

You groan in feigned annoyance, pulling away from him just in time to catch the dazzling grin splitting his face. It’s a beautiful sight that you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of no matter how many times you see it. You recall the caption of a post made what feels like ages ago, but the words ring just as true now as they did then, and you stand by them. A smiley Lando is the best Lando.

“If we’re really doing this,” you start, somberly after another moment, “we have to be careful. Like, really careful. No PDA in public. No PDA anywhere unless we know for a fact that we’re alone and there aren’t any cameras. And no telling anyone unless we absolutely have to for health or security reasons, or something. We can’t have this blow up on us, because if they catch you you’ll be just as much of a target for the hate and I will not have you get caught in the crossfire with this, Lando.”

He finagles around a bit until your hands are held in his and he’s pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “I promise,” he whispers against your skin.

It feels like the start of something perfect.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by user, user, and 561,816 others

footballfansofficial BREAKING: Manchester City Forward Garrett Ward, a victim of infidelity?! Ward and his girlfriend Y/N L/N first revealed their romance to the world on the 5th of January. Since then, they’ve regularly shared photos of one another across the social media platform Instagram, and have been sighted on dates around Manchester and London. Though the couple have not recently shared any new posts of one another, fans believed this was due to schedule differences, as nothing has been said to indicate an end to their relationship. With the Champions League back in full swing, Ward has been constricted to a busy schedule of matches in Europe, and similarly as a photographer for Formula One team McLaren, L/N has been traveling across the globe. However, she’s apparently more than just friends with McLaren driver Lando Norris! Pictures from the 24th of March at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne reveal L/N and Norris sharing an intimate moment. Check the link in our bio for the full article!

view all 19,815 comments

user oh… that’s not….

user that is NOT garrett ward for sure 🫢🫢

user honestly a cheating scandal was not on my 2024 bingo card

↳ user i mean i’m not surprised but i definitely thought of the two of them it would be ward tbh 👀

user WHAT DID WE FUCKING SAY

↳ user WE ALL SAW THIS FROM A MILE AWAY

user fucking slag 🙄

user ugh!!! us REAL garrett ward fans KNEW this would happen but everyone called us crazy!!! 😠😠 he deserves someone who ACTUALLY cares about him and we knew from the beginning that she wasn’t it!! honestly just the thought that anyone could POSSIBLY do this is SICKENING!!! garrett is such a loving person and he deserves the WORLD!! i hope he doesn’t let this stop him from finding REAL love some day!! 🥺🥺🫶🫶

↳ user ikr?!?! it’s so not fair that he’d choose her when she’d just use and abuse him when he has so many loyal fans that would treat him so much better and would actually love him and all he has to offer. she totally must’ve manipulated him or something!!

user damn… i wasn't l/n’s biggest fan in the beginning but i kinda hoped she’d prove me wrong… yet here we are…

user this is seriously so disappointing to see

user SLUT 🤬 SLUT 🤬 SLUT 🤬

user long distance is not an excuse to cheat and this is such a horrible thing to do to a partner. garrett ward has been exceptionally nice to her, and this is what she gives in return? so many ppl tried to warn him about her closeness to lando norris too. i’m disappointed but not surprised that this was the result. girls like this truly have no shame and no dignity. they don’t know loyalty at all.

↳ user we tried to warn him and this is what happens? like we tried, but you ignored us and called us crazy. make it make sense 😮‍💨

↳ user the fact that he was genuinely so sweet by taking her on dates and posting her on his socials and she turns around and stabs him in the back like this… my heart hurts for how upset he must be right now. and honestly, this lando norris guy is just as much to blame for garrett’s pain too.

↳ user i’m willing to give norris the benefit of the doubt if only because we’ve seen girls like this before who manipulate athletes into giving her what she wants and if they don’t then they move onto the next. obviously ward wasn’t going to just roll over for her every whim, so now she’s moving onto the next guy and is trying to manipulate him the same way she did ward. norris is as much of a victim as ward is.

user WHORE BEHAVIOUR I CALLED IT FROM THE GET GO GUYS

user she really said “hold my beer” and went to go prove us all right about our initial assumptions 👀👀

user knew i should’ve trusted my instincts when they told me she was bad news…

user AINT NO WAY INFAMOUS WOMANIZER GARRETT WARD, AS IN NOTORIOUS CHEATER GARRETT WARD, GOT CHEATED ON BY THE FIRST GIRL HE WAS IN A SERIOUS COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP WITH 😂

user lowkey had high hopes for them bc i gen thought ward garrett was changing his ways and was trying to settle down

↳ user me toooooooo i thought she was gonna be a good influence on him 😔

user can you blame her tho?? you try moaning “garrett” in bed and see how that goes for you

user just because they haven’t said anything about ending their relationship doesn’t mean they haven’t ended it privately! honestly who are we to judge them for not telling the public every detail about their personal lives? this was obviously not a moment intended for us to see and was meant to be shared between l/n and norris, and i honestly find this account in general to be incredibly invasive as most if not all of the photographs the articles are written about are from paparazzi and look as though they were taken without the consent or knowledge of the people in them.

↳ user THANK YOU!! 🙏 i’ve been trying to say that for so long!! speculation is so dangerous and harmful to the very real people that are involved and it can have consequences on them and their careers. these pictures do look very damning, but we’re lacking context into l/n and ward’s lives and we shouldn’t judge anyone involved in this before we have the full story. for all we know, the relationship was ended and this is l/n’s new partner, in which case we should be respectful of her choices to be with someone else and should also respect their privacy and take into consideration the fact that there was probably a reason her and ward didn’t announce a split.

↳ user the only comment of sense on this entire post. istg, some of these ppl just have too much time on their hands and spend it all worrying about the love lives of celebrities that don’t even know they exist. y/n and garrett are both adults and can make decisions for themselves without needing the support or backing of people who don’t actually know anything about them beyond the persona they put on for the public. even if she did cheat, garrett’s a big boy and can take care of himself. he doesn’t need an army of women and girls either half his age or double it coming to his defense. be so fucking for real and maybe go touch some grass while you’re at it.

━━ a/n: we are back in business! i am very happy with this part and how it turned out. there's a bit of a time skip between pre-season testing and the australian grand prix obviously, but all questions shall be answered in the next part! thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoyed!

304 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 1 month

Note

AHHHHHHHH !!!!!! PART 11 !!!!!!! i wasn’t expecting it to go there, but i am NOT mad !! the sweet, comforting routine of reality tv, cheap wine, and being close was just so precious, and the slow dissolve of y/n’s hesitations was so🤌🤌when lando started opening up i was like “omg omg omg is he gonna confess omg omg omg” AND THEN HE DID AND I WAS LIKE AHH !!!!! i have to tell you i think my knees went physically weak at “do you want this? then have it.” like dude. if i had been standing up i think i would’ve fallen down fr.

i’m sorry to hear you’re still sick ☹️and i hope you’re feeling better soon !!! sending u all the good vibes and healing energy <33

I am so glad you enjoyed it! 😊🫶 Honestly, this part is my magnum opus haha! It's probably my favorite in the entire series so far, just because it's the moment where everything finally culminates into the confession. All the time spent pining and the misunderstanding after misunderstanding was all for this, and it felt like poetic justice.

It also felt very therapeutic to write our dear Y/N finally having this sweet moment with Lando. Even beyond the romance of it all, from the very beginning all she has wanted is to return to the normalcy that they are both familiar with, and though not everything is as fine as she would like, she still has the reality TV and cheap wine and Lando is there and that's all that really matters.

I do have to admit that it took me a number of tries to get through writing that ending scene. I was so flustered the entire time! I swear my face was so red that I was worried I had given myself a fever. I haven't really dabbled in romance writing for very long, most of my experience is angsty drama, so this was absolutely new territory for me and I hope that wasn't too obvious in the way it's portrayed 🥲.

But I digress! Thank you for the positive vibes and energy! I seem to be getting to the tail end of whatever my illness was, so here's to hoping that I can get back into the swing of things soon! 🤞

#jessie replies

4 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 1 month

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part eleven.

Lando’s hotel room isn’t terribly bigger than yours. The bathroom is definitely a bit more spacious, and he’s got an actual seating area off to the side next to the bed rather than a single uncomfortably stiff chair, but the only difference you care about is that he’s got a balcony looking out over Manama and it provides a gorgeous view of the city’s nightscape.

The lights glimmer and gleam down below, a sea of liveliness that contrasts the peaceful quietness of the world from where you stand so high up above it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how beautiful some of the places we get to go to are,” Lando says, breaking the silence as he steps out onto the balcony with you. There are two glasses filled generously with the promised wine, and he hands one off to you before coming to rest against the railing beside you. “Six years now, and the view still takes my breath away.”

You hum in agreement, taking a sip from your glass. The taste of the wine is still sweet on your tongue when you answer back, “Getting to see the world like this always reminds me of how lucky I am to get to work in this sport.”

“Me too,” he murmurs softly. When you peek over at him, his gaze is cast out across the city, but there’s a look on his face that suggests the lights and streets below aren’t really what he’s focusing on.

You take a moment to observe. He’s no longer clad in the endearingly obnoxious papaya orange that makes up McLaren’s teamwear, and is instead dressed in a pair of baggy sweatpants that sit low on his hips and a T-shirt that’s been worn thin and hangs loose enough around his necklike that you can see the defined contours of his collarbones. His hair is freshly washed and the curls are still loose with the lingering dampness. From where you’re standing, you can make out the familiar tea tree scent of his shampoo.

It’s so domestic— and close to what things were like before Garrett Ward threw a wrench into it all—that it makes your heart clench painfully in your chest.

The dark circles are still there and you imagine they will be until he’s able to get some real rest, but there’s an easiness to him that wasn’t present earlier in the day. His shoulders aren’t as tense, and neither are they sagging under an invisible weight. He looks lost in thought, but not in the way you’ve seen in the past when his anxiety grabs hold and forces him into a worsening spiral of insecurity-fueled self-doubt.

Part of you wonders if it’s because of you— if your agreement to spend time with him and now your presence here beside him is partly responsible for this change in demeanor. The other part of you is desperately trying to bury those thoughts beneath the reminder of why you can’t think those things.

“I promised you stupid TV,” he says all of a sudden, turning his head and meeting your eyes.

You’d be embarrassed about being caught staring if it weren’t for the fact that his own eyes seem to trace every feature of your face before gesturing with a nod of his head towards the balcony’s door.

It’s easy to fall back into the swing of things from there.

The loveseat is quickly agreed to be too stiff and much too small to fit both of you and your shared tendency to stretch out and take up as much room as possible. Back at your flat, the two of you would’ve sat on either side of the couch with your legs tangled together in the middle and a blanket or two draped over your laps. Normally, Lando would poke the meat of your thigh with his cold toes, and in response you’d kick his shins until both of you were lost in fits of giggles and cackling so hard you’d have to rewind the TV to catch what was lost beneath the sound of your laughter.

There’s no cold toes pressing against your thighs or shin-kicking tonight, but you’re both bundled up under the covers of Lando’s bed and it feels right in a way that you haven’t had in a long time.

You’re watching pretty people clad in pretty bathing suits run around a pretty island complaining about their pretty people problems. A girl who looks like she could be a runway model falls into a sobbing mess after finishing a dramatic retelling of how the guy she fancies is tripping over himself for the other girls who all, also, look like they could be runway models.

Lando scoffs. “He looks like he’s a bad haircut away from being a troll. What does she even see in him?”

“The haircut combined with the abs are enough to make up for the rest of what he’s lacking in the visual department—” you drain the rest of your glass and bump him with your elbow to fill it back up again. “But if he got a haircut,” you continue when he’s taken your glass, “it’d be game over. At least the guy she was with before was nice and listened to her talk without interrupting every five seconds to say something about himself.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Lando exclaims, handing your newly filled glass back over to you.

The glasses you’ve already had sit warm inside you, like the relaxation the alcohol has brought about within has ignited a fire in your chest and is working to melt away the frost and the bone-deep chill of your loneliness.

Lando seems to be faring similarly, if the heated flush to his skin is anything to go by. His cheeks and, adorably enough, the tips of his ears are a rosy pink that remind you of what he looks like when he’s sunburnt. There’s an upward curl to his lips that looks more natural than some of the other smiles you’ve seen these past few days, and it gives him a lighthearted appearance that contrasts greatly to the frustration of earlier today. He’s giggly in the way he only gets when he’s tipsy, and the joyfulness is infectious.

You both started on opposite sides of the bed, leaving room in the middle like a physical reminder of the distance that still exists between the two of you until you can sort everything else out. But that distance has slowly disappeared as the night has progressed. You’ve each somehow migrated into the middle of the mattress and now his arm is pressed against yours and you can feel his body heat seeping in through the fabric of your hoodie.

You should probably be trying harder to regain and maintain the distance, for Lando’s sake if not your own. You don’t want to lead him into thinking that everything is fine and dandy again, especially when it isn’t. There are a number of conversations the two of you need to have still, and though you’re just as desperate to cling to the comfort of familiarity as Lando seems to be, you know that if you don’t hold yourselves accountable to confronting the misunderstandings then he certainly won’t.

Lando’s always been like that. He’s not afraid, persay, of confrontation, but he’s keen on avoiding it if possible. It’s one of many things that sets his anxiety off and you’re often very understanding at letting things go if only because they’re petty and small and not worth making him feel so bad over. But, despite how little joy you find now at the idea of forcing him to acknowledge his mistakes— the complete opposite feeling you imagined having weeks ago when you were still fueled by anger and frustration at his avoidance and seemingly lack of desire to take responsibility for the hurt he’s caused— you know it’s something you need to do.

Even still, having him close like this both physically and emotionally is so comfortable and familiar, and the wine has done it’s number on you and Lando both. The barrier you’ve kept around yourself the last few days— the barrier that serves as a reminder for why you need to be careful and stay away— has been chipped away by the sweet tartness of the alcohol and it feels liberating to be free of it, albeit temporarily as you keep telling yourself.

You think that if you tried to pull away now, to reinstate that distance and the subsequent reminder that it’s meant to be, it would be and feel like tearing off a limb and then expecting everything to be fine as you watch yourself bleed out.

So, instead, for the time being, you bask in his warmth and cherish what you have while you have it, until the alcohol fades from your system and your head clears and it’s time to be the bigger person again.

It’s significantly later into the night when Lando speaks up again. The clock on the nightstand says it’s nearing three in the morning, but the TV is still on and you and him are still curled beneath the sheets watching with rapt attention.

The bottle of wine is empty and on the floor, but the buzz of being a little more than tipsy still lingers in your blood, and in Lando’s too, considering his occasional fit of giggles.

“This is really nice,” he says quietly into the darkness of the room.

You raise an eyebrow at him, head murky with thoughts all swirling together in a whirlpool inside your mind. “I mean,” you shrug, “it’s a more interesting episode than the last, but I wouldn’t really call it nice. It’s still reality TV—”

He laughs and the sound is like bells ringing in your ears. It occurs to you briefly that you don’t recall having ever heard a more beautiful sound, but then you shove it down and brush it away with the reminder that it’s just the wine talking.

You try not to think about the fact that you weren’t drunk the last time you had that thought.

“No,” he shakes his head, “I mean, this. You and me, here, hanging out again.”

The silence hangs heavy between the two of you, broken only by the muffled sound of the voices on the TV and the occasional squeal of flirtatious laughter that’s louder than everything else. You let it linger for a few moments longer, tracing the profile of his face with your gaze and taking note of the downward twitch of his lips as his words sit unanswered.

Until finally, you whisper back, “I wasn’t the one who stopped, Lando.”

He swallows thickly, and suddenly the exhaustion is back on his face, painted across his features like a mask has suddenly been lifted. The soft flickering glow of the TV accentuates the bags beneath his eyes, making them appear deeper and darker, like bruises across his tanned skin.

“I know,” he whispers back. “I was afraid.”

“Of what?” You ask.

He shrugs, but the flinch he just barely suppresses tells you he knows perfectly well what he was afraid of. He turns to look at you, meets your eyes for a few fleeting seconds, then looks away once more and heaves a sigh that seems to carry with it all of his current troubles.

“That you wouldn’t need me anymore," he hesitantly reveals.

Lando’s anxiety is something you came to terms with relatively quickly into your friendship. It was hard, at first, to imagine someone who portrays themself with such confidence and friendliness to be so insecure and afraid, but the more you got to know him the more you realized that Lando has always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders whether people asked him to or not. It was a burden he took onto himself as a way of proving— more so to himself, than anyone else— that he deserves everything he’s been given

He’s a perfectionist, you know this without a doubt. He’s too hard on himself, and doesn’t understand that failure is a part of growing.

He once tried to take up painting, but despite you mentioning multiple times that he didn’t need to know how to perfectly mimic a Rembrandt or a Caravaggio, the fact that he wasn’t immediately great at it was enough to have him spiraling into an anxiety attack that you coached him through in the family bathroom at a library in downtown London.

Afterwards, he’d reluctantly admitted that he was a perfectionist because nobody could argue he didn’t deserve to be where he was if he was the best.

But a person can’t be the best at being a friend. And you suspect that between changing schools as frequently as he did and karting taking up a majority of his freetime, Lando didn’t have many friends growing up. He never learned that some people genuinely enjoy him for who he is, rather than what he can do or offer.

“Lando,” you murmur sadly, reaching out from beneath the covers to take his hand. You shouldn’t, but seeing the way his eyes immediately focus in on the contact and the way his fingers squeeze back desperately at yours is enough to justify it. “You don’t ever have to worry about me not needing you. You’re my best friend. You’re the first person I’ve ever called my best friend. I will always need you.”

He sniffles. “I guess, I thought you wouldn’t want to, though. Still be my friend, I mean. If you had someone more important in your life to go to instead of me.”

“I’ve never wanted to be friends with someone more than you,” you answer back, squeezing his hand.

“But that’s the problem,” he says suddenly, voice upped an octave in a distressed whine. He turns to look at you and shakes his head, eyebrows pinched together like he’s in pain. His cheeks are still flushed from the alcohol, and the wine has stained his lips red. He looks so different from the Lando you know— from the Lando you’re usually allowed to see. “We’re just friends.”

“Lando…” you whisper.

He’s watching your lips.

When he kisses you, you can taste the sweetness of the wine on his tongue. It’s frantic and desperate, and he holds you with both hands like he’s worried you’ll slip away if he doesn’t. There’s no butterflies in your chest or fireworks in your head like they always write about in novels, but there’s a buzzing at the tips of your fingers and toes━ pins and needles━ like your body’s been numb and is just now regaining sensation for the first time in forever.

You kiss back, despite a muffled voice in the back of your brain screaming at you not to. How can you listen to something that sounds so clearly like self-sabatogue when you finally have the opportunity to have what you’ve always wanted?

Lando pulls away first, only to catch his breath. His eyes dance across your face, like he’s trying to sear each and every feature into his memory. He caresses your cheek softer than you’ve ever been touched before, a brush of his thumb against your skin so gentle that you’d think you imagined it if not for the way his gaze follows the path of his stroke. He’s treating you like you’re precious━ not in a way that implies fragility, but like he’s too afraid to even take the risk of hurting you.

It’s a sentiment you can share, though you’ve never admitted it to anyone else and are reluctant to even acknowledge it yourself.

Lando is special━ all of the athletes you work with are special, but Lando is a different kind of special. Carlos, Daniel, Oscar, and Jack are all wonderful people that you’re incredibly thankful to have had in your life, but Lando’s the only one that you need in your life, that you’ll always need in your life.

He’s everything to you.

When he smiles, it’s like he’s taken a piece of the sun itself and found you worthy of being shone upon. When he laughs, it’s the most magical sound in the world, like music to your ears in a song composed for only you to hear. When he wraps you up in his arms, it’s like coming home and knowing that nothing can hurt you when you’re there. When he━

“Y/N,” he breathes. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, needy and whiney. He’s still panting, but he’s already leaning back down to take your lips again. You meet him half way in another heated kiss that rivals the desperate passion of the first, swiping your tongue against his lower lip and feeling a spark of heat jolt through you when he opens himself up to you easily.

Emboldened by his reaction, you brush against the hem of his shirt. You let your fingers dance teasingly across the sliver of warm skin that peeks out beneath, swallowing down the next desperate sound that threatens to slip past his lips.

“Lando,” you murmur against him. “We shouldn’t.” It’s a pathetic last ditch attempt to stop now while you’re ahead━ to do what you should’ve done from the beginning and pull away, go back to your hotel room a few floors down, and pretend this didn’t happen. To keep the distance.

He pauses, pulling away just far enough to give you a look. It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to stop staring at his kiss-swollen and spit-slick lips and actually meet his eyes. Between quick breaths he says, “Last I remember, you weren’t actually dating Garrett Ward.”

“But━”

“Do you want this?”

You nod.

“Then have it.”

And who are you to say no?

━━ a/n: writing this last bit had me kicking my feet and giggling like a school girl i swear. but huzzah! it's here! i mentioned in the last author's note that i was ill, and i unfortunately still am. i've gotten over it enough to at least entertain the idea of doing more than sleep all day, but i'm still pretty much confined to my bed which makes it hard to get over to my desk where my computer is. most of this was written on my phone, so i do apologize if there are more errors than usual. similarly, this part is also a bit shorter than some of the past parts due to the same reason. anyways, talking about the actual story now, i have a love-hate relationship with this part because i like it but i also found it very frustrating and felt like i repeated myself an annoying amount of times with certain things. i hope it's enjoyable nonetheless, and that you're all happy they finally (after eleven parts, jesus christ) kissed.

310 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 1 month

Note

hi lovely !!! loveeeed part 10 ! i’ve been in the thick of midterm hell recently, so it was so fun to read🥰i LOVE the direction u took with the tentative forgiveness - YES there is so much they still need to talk about and figure out, but ALSO they do need each other and the tentative moments make it sooooo good for the pining🤭and ugh oscar and his unending wise words🤌he’s such good middle ground for two people who feel so much so outwardly and feel all of that for each other !!!

and im sorry you’ve been ill :(( i hope you feel better soon !! don’t worry about the wait for this chapter, life is always getting in the way, i’m just happy i got to read it (and that this journey keeps continuing), and i’m suuuuuper excited for the part <3

First and foremost, I am so sorry that it took me so long to respond to this! 😭 I thought I was getting over my sickness, but either it got a second wind or I caught something else because I've been completely out of commission once again.

As for the events of part ten, I personally enjoy portraying people and relationships as realistically as possible. Obviously, part of the appeal of fanfiction is that it's fictional, and we can suspend our disbelief, which would make it very easy for me to say that this singular apology makes them best friends again, as if none of the conflict ever happened, and they run off into the sunset together and live happily ever after. But it's so much more fun, in my opinion, to build it back up gradually and have those pining will-they-won't-they moments that leave the reader on the edge of their seat.

Our dear Y/N still has a long road ahead of her as far as achieving that happily ever after, and likewise Lando still has some work to do if he wants to be a part of it.

With that said, I think you'll really enjoy what I have planned for the future of this story! Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty proud of the plan I've made. It's a little clever and a little cheeky, in my opinion, so I hope it lives up to the hype I've created for it in my brain, haha!

That is, of course, if I ever actually feel well enough to keep writing 🥲.

But I digress! Best of luck on your midterms, I know those can be incredibly stressful, so please remember to take care of yourself! Treat yourself to a nice break afterward if you can! And thank you so so so very much for your kind words as always, and for being so understanding about the delays 🫶

#jessie replies

6 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 1 month

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part ten.

It all happens in a blur.

One moment Lando is hugging you. The firm press of his chest against yours, the grip of his calloused hand on your neck keeping your head tucked into him, and the pounding beat of his heart where your hands are trapped between the two of you. It’s such a familiar feeling— the warmth, safety, and comfort of it all. It’s like coming home.

And then the next moment he's jumping away from you like the touch of your skin against his has left him burned. Like he doesn’t trust himself not to cross the distance again if he stands a step too close—

“Erm,” he rubs at the back of his neck, and avoids your eyes as though the very thought of meeting them is appalling. There's an awkwardness about him that’s never existed before, even back when you were still far from ever calling one another friends. “Sorry. I should've asked first.”

“It's fine,” you answer. It is fine. It's been fine for years now.

You hadn’t been a particularly touchy person when you were younger— a byproduct of growing up in a family that never really cared much about or prioritized physical affection. You used to see other girls at school cling to one another in the halls, or link arms on the way home, or play with each other’s hair at lunch and it hadn’t bothered you that you didn’t have that same level of closeness with any of them, but it had confused you that friends could be so touchy-feely when your own parents seemed reluctant to spare even a pat on the shoulder.

Lando changed that.

Lando’s changed a lot of things, you’re realizing.

He grew up with three siblings and they bicker constantly, but they also have the easy closeness that you’ve always found so vastly different from your own friendships. They could be calling one another every name under the sun and then a few that you’re pretty sure they made up, and at the same time they’ll be clinging to one another like they can’t bear the thought of standing more than a meter away.

The first time Lando slung his arm over your shoulder, you’d nearly had a heart attack.

And then he just kept doing it.

By the time you realized that his hugging and draping and clinging had become a new norm for you, he was practically attached to your hip already and you didn't have the heart to question why he'd decided to bestow his physical affections upon you of all people.

“You don't have to apologize for stuff like that—”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I just—” he shrugs, still avoiding your eyes in favor of staring at a scuff on his shoe, “—didn't know if you still wanted me to.”

The reality is that a single explosive confession of your frustration and a hug doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t fix anything, in all honesty. You’re still angry and upset and, quite frankly, hurt by what Lando had said and the way he’d treated you, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

“Garrett Ward,” Lando starts hesitantly, sparing you a fleeting glance at the mention of your fake boyfriend’s name, like he’s assessing your reaction, “blackmailed you into your relationship?”

You nod. A month ago, getting to talk about all of this was all you ever wanted and, in the heat of the moment, it had felt good to just blurt it all out and get it off your chest. The relief of someone else knowing— someone like Lando, who knows your ins and outs like he’s charted the map of your very being— isn’t erased now that you’ve had a moment to calm down, but it’s been overshadowed by a fluttery feeling of nervousness.

“He threatened to completely destroy my career,” you tell him again. “He said he’d make up a rumor about misconduct, and there’s enough people that would believe him. He has a very… devoted fanbase, as I’m sure you’re already aware.”

Lando’s drunken words return to you. Nobody in their right mind would soberly agree to be Garrett Ward’s girlfriend, and what does that say about you? Extenuating circumstances or not, if you were smarter like Lando said he thought you were, you probably would’ve been able to find a way out of it by now, or you would’ve been able to completely avoid getting tangled up in it entirely.

You think back to all the moments Jack had offered to unite the other City players who were supposedly more than willing to back up your claims that nothing unprofessional or inappropriate at all had happened while you were working at Etihad Campus and with the team.

At the time, the idea of actually standing up against him had scared you. You were too stubborn and proud to admit it, but Garrett Ward scared you— still scares you. His fans were still on their vitriolic rampage of hate, filling your comments and DMs with insults against your appearance, your career, and every other imaginable aspect of your being. You’d been forced to sort through death threats, wishes of harm, and instructions to kill yourself and the idea of it being in any way worse than it already was— the idea of exposing yourself to the judgement of so many others, others who would potentially side with a footballer they find mildly entertaining over a random girl whose only claim to fame is a few viral photographs for a motorsports team— had been overwhelming.

The night you sobbed in bed thinking about it all was the night you turned the comments off.

But, had you taken Jack up on his deal immediately, then maybe it would’ve been soon enough to also argue against anything else having “happened” in the time you’ve since spent alone with Garrett out and about on your scheduled excursions for the paparazzi.

Garrett Ward is a smart man, though he shows it so rarely in a capacity that’s actually beneficial to anyone or anything that doesn’t pertain to him. The threats he made on that night in early January about misconduct aren’t as fool-proof when you’d have a team of other players corroborating a completely different story to his. But there are other things he could say now that are harder to argue against without it all turning into a muddled he-said-she-said clusterfuck.

Being back around racing cars and their drivers has been a good distraction for a time, but you dread the day when he turns those new threats against you and asks for more than you’ve already agreed to give him for his scheme.

Lando winces, probably also remembering his words, or at the very least whatever recount Daniel gave him if he was too drunk to remember it all clearly.

“Can’t you dispute his claim?” He finally looks at you again. “Does he even have any evidence?”

You frown, “It’d be his word against mine, unless he doctored evidence to use against me. But it’s not as simple as just saying he’s lying. He’s an athlete, you know how much sway someone like Garrett has. Even if he can’t prove anything, the hit to my reputation would be enough to ensure I’m never able to find a photography gig again, let alone another in the sports industry.”

You imagine that no matter what you do now, your at Garrett’s whim and have no choice but to adhere to the schedule he wants to follow.

You tell Lando as much. “I just have to wait it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a PR thing,” you say with a shrug. It’s your turn to look away now, awkwardly tracing the cracks in the pavement beneath your shoes. “He’s only with me to prove he can hold down a steady relationship and fix his reputation. He’ll end it eventually.”

You’re still pretending to be enraptured with an odd spot on the ground, so you hear more than see Lando take a break, like he’s preparing to speak again—

“Session’s resuming in ten, Lando,” comes another voice instead.

Oscar has the decency to look a bit regretful at interrupting the two of you, probably because it’s the first time in weeks that you’ve both tolerated being so physically close and he’s tired of the angst and tension that permeates when you’re both confined to the same general location as one another. Either of you could’ve just as easily taken to standing as far away from each other as you could, and though it would’ve been awkward, it wouldn’t have been very hard to pass the time in total silence. Oscar’s probably just glad you both can at least still hold a civil conversation without wanting to tear each other apart, which makes you wonder whether the earlier shouting had actually managed to go unnoticed beneath the busy sounds of the garage.

Lando nods. He spares you one final glance, that you meet for a fleeting second, before he disappears through the door.

Oscar lingers. He’s watching you with those all-knowing eyes of his.

“What?” You ask.

He shrugs, but his stare is expectant.

“I told him,” you say in place of his continued silence. “About the whole Garrett situation.”

“And?”

You grind the toe of your shoe against the pavement, stalling. Oscar isn’t scheduled to drive until the afternoon session, which means he doesn’t have anywhere to be, but a part of you wonders if you could bore him enough with your own silence that it would make him wander off back to the garage in search of something to do.

Except this is Oscar you’re talking about it, and he could probably exist in total silence with someone for days if he really wanted to—probably wouldn’t even need to try.

You bite the bullet and lower yourself down to the ground, beckoning for him to do the same beside you with a wave of your hand.

“I’m realizing that I don’t actually know how to read him as well as I thought I did,” you admit when he joins you. “He was my best friend— is still my best friend, and I thought I knew everything about him, but now I feel like I never really knew him at all.”

Oscar hums, “I think you do know Lando, better than a lot of other people can say. You’re just realizing that he’s good at hiding things when he wants to. Just think about it, he’s never had a reason to hide anything from you, so of course it would be easy to read him when he’s always letting you. He’s practically an open book for you, Y/N.”

“So I fucked up our friendship by holding him accountable for his actions and now he’s never going to be open with me ever again.” You run a hand through your hair and let your fingers tangle in the wind-strewn strands, letting the sparks of pain keep you from spiralling at the thought of having ruined the most important relationship you’ve ever had.

Oscar snorts, “That’s not at all what I was going to say.”

“Yeah, well—” you elbow him teasingly in the ribs, “—you’re a freak of nature, so forgive me for not understanding how your freakish brain works either.”

“What I was going to say, is that it’s a setback at worst. You keep talking about it like having an argument isn’t completely normal behavior for friends. Me and Logan used to fight a lot, back in our Prema days especially. But you’d never be able to guess it by looking at us now. I mean, my parents keep a picture of him on our family fridge, so…” Oscar stifles a laugh when you lift an questioning eyebrow at him.

“My point is,” he continues, “just keep talking with him. Give it time, and things will get better again. But if you want my honest opinion, I think Lando’s just realized that he overstepped and did something to hurt you, and because he doesn’t want to do it again, he’s trying to make himself smaller, in a way, to minimize the chances. My guess is that he kept his distance as a way of trying not to impede.”

You lean your head back until it thunks against the wall and you’re staring up at the overhang above you and the slivers of blue sky peeking through the slats. “‘Impede,’” you repeat as you do so. “There’s nothing for him to even impede on.”

Oscar makes another sound. “Just because he knows the reality of the situation between you and Ward now doesn’t mean he didn’t spend nearly two months believing otherwise.”

Which— he makes a good point. It’s a really good point, actually, but you don’t like what it does to the butterflies in your stomach. They always used to appear back when you still humored the idea of a blossoming romance being somehow possible between yourself and Lando. Their reemergence isn’t as pleasant as you fantasized about it one day being, so you shove the feeling back down and bury it deep, and Oscar lets you both sit in companionable silence until he’s called back to duty by his race engineer.

The rest of the day goes easily enough.

Lando finishes his allotted time without anymore issues much to the relief of everyone in the garage. When he hops out of the car with a big grin stretched across his face, there’s a collective sigh of relief given by the engineers and mechanics alike.

You note that, despite the cheerful smile, there’s still the underlying exhaustion that seems to be dragging him down. The dark circles are hidden only slightly better when his eyes are squinted with the force of his grin, and the sickly palor of his skin has only been covered temporarily by the red flush of his cheeks brought on by the combined heat of the car and Bahrain’s midday sun. Despite the energy he exudes, bouncing around as he debriefs with his race engineer, his shoulders are sagging beneath the weight of an invisible force that worries you.

You’d be a liar if you said you weren’t still frustrated. Lando knows the gist of the situation. There’s a lot of finer points that he’d need to be filled in on if you wanted to talk about it with him in the same way that you discuss it with Jack, but he at least knows the story. Even still, he hasn’t apologized for his part in any of it— for the pain and distress he caused you when ignoring your calls and texts, for the hurt and shame he made you feel when he tore you apart in his drunken rant.

There is so much you still want to say to him, so many mean things you want to bring up from your worst days hiding in the bathroom at work or your loneliest nights curled up in your flat.

You imagine you’ll have your chance to get it all out there eventually, but as vindicating as it would be to scream and rage and throw the tantrum you believe you are justified to have, you imagine it would feel so much nicer to go back to how things were.

There will be more confrontations and you know that it will have get worse again before it gets better, but in the meantime you can take the win for what it is and celebrate that it’s still something.

And right now, Lando needs you as a friend as much as you need him.

It’s easier said than done, however.

You aren’t avoiding him, exactly, but he’s busy. In the past, you’d make yourself comfortable in whatever space he’s occupying and wait for him to get done, but you’re currently trying to maintain a bit of distance for both of your sake. There isn’t any lingering spite or desire to be away from him— there’s never been a desire to be away from him, if you’re being honest with yourself— but you’ve been able to come to terms with the fact that you really just want to hug him again and keep hugging him, and that might become a problem if you’re not careful. You can’t afford to just rush back into things.

Because the thing this, you might be stubborn and set in your ways, but you know that Lando is such a key part of your life and has been for so long— like a drug that you can’t live without, or rather don’t want to live without— that if given the opportunity to do so, you might unknowingly let everything go and dive head first into your revived friendship too fast just for the small chance of experiencing that normalcy again.

So you keep your distance. You stick on one side of the garage and Lando, after showering and changing out of his fireproofs, is kept on the other with debriefs and technical talk. He glances over a few times and meets your eyes, offers tentatives smiles that seem so much more tame and reluctant than his usual upbeat self, and hovers at the imaginary line separating your side from his, but before he’s ever able to cross over there’s someone else pulling him away to discuss one thing or another.

It’s as you’re making your way to the shuttle from the circuit to the hotel that you finally get your opportunity. Lando’s voice calls your name and stops you in your tracks.

Though Oscar had driven for the remainder of the day, and there wasn’t much else to worry about on or off the track, he looks even more exhausted in the darkness of the night, with the shadows cast by the streetlamps darkening the bags beneath his eyes and further accentuating his paleness.

He catches up to you quickly, a hesitant smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Um,” he nervously stutters out, “I know there’s still a lot that we need to talk about and things aren’t completely fine between us yet— and that’s fine,” he hurries to add on, “you deserve to be mad at me. I just—” he cuts himself off and casts his gaze downward to watch his fluttering fingers pick at an already bloodied hangnail. “I’m sorry. You deserve a better apology and I’ll give you one when we’re not stood in a dark carpark, but for now I’m sorry for everything. Most importantly, I’m sorry for making you feel like I didn’t value you as… as a friend.”

He falls quiet, still staring down at the mess he’s made of his cuticle. You gawk at him for a moment in surprise.

“Um,” he starts again when you don’t say anything, shifting restlessly on his feet like he’s contemplating whether to stand his ground or dash off. He glances up at you shyly, and you never thought you’d ever really describe Lando with the word shy, but there’s no other way to refer to the soft look he spares you before quickly diverting his eyes back to his hangnail. “I was wondering, would you wanna come crash at my hotel room and watch stupid TV with me? I can order us cheap wine off the room service menu, or something.”

You recognize the olive branch for what it is.

Lando’s never been the greatest with his words, he’s always excelled at replacing what can be said with what can be done instead, and this is his way of asking to make it up to you— of asking to be let in to at least prove to you that he’s serious.

You take in his downtrodden appearance however, and realize that maybe it’s also his way of asking you not to leave him alone anymore. You remind yourself of your earlier observation: Lando needs a friend as much as you do.

You nudge him with your shoulder after a moment, causing him to lift his gaze once more and meet your eyes again.

“I’d love to,” you answer, offering him a gentle smile back.

━━ a/n: this story has reached a frightening word count that i never imagined it reaching (28k), if i'm being honest, but the more the merrier right? my sincerest apologies for taking so long to get this up, though. i've been a bit ill as of late, which has just completely zapped my energy to do anything that isn't rot in bed all day. i'm feeling better, hence finally getting around to finishing the last home stretch of this part, but i feel bad for how long it took me and i'm hoping the next part won't take me as long as this one did.

299 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Text

IN FAIR VERONA ━━ CL16.

things are hard when you're the only female in a male-dominated space, and the newest driver for the newest team knows this best.

( charles leclerc x driver!schumacher!reader )

━━ part one.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by mickschumacher, maseratimsg, and 305,029 others

yourusername feeling blue?

view all 1,593 comments

user i am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure right now

user MOTHER IS MOTHERING SO HARD RN 😩

user y/n schumacher never misses

↳ user let’s be real here user the entire schumacher family never misses

↳ user y’all have seen mick’s most recent post too right??

user she is so gorgeous i am ILL

user god really does have his favorites huh 😭😭

↳ user this is undeniable proof

↳ user people this beautiful don’t actually exist i refuse to believe it

user every day i wake up and cry that i will never be as stunning and skilled as her

user formula 2 silly season has me losing my damn mind i swear 😫 i might as well be wearing a tin foil hat with the number of theories i’m following and the consistent blue themed posts y/n keeps dropping are NOT HELPING

↳ user not to add to your conspiracy madness, but it’s already confirmed that fred vesti is replacing jehan daruvala who’s moving to mp motorsport, and there are rumors that oliver bearman is also getting a prema seat which could mean that y/n schumacher is going to another team as well or leaving f2 entirely

↳ user a good chunk of the other teams have already revealed their driver lineup and none of them include schumacher, which doesn’t leave a lot of options IF the rumours are true

↳ user i can’t see her just leaving motorsports entirely considering she’s worked so hard to get where she is 🤔 which calls into question whether she’s moving to a different racing series

↳ user i really can’t see schumacher leaving tbh, especially since she’s been in f2 since 2017 and has established herself as a prema legend basically

↳ user the fact that she has been at prema for so long (and has gotten p2 in the f2 championship nearly every year since 2017) could also be proof that she’s moving on to bigger and better things

↳ user wait she’s been there HOW LONG??? since 2017??? as in she drove with charles leclerc, her brother mick, AND oscar piastri??? 🤯🤯🤯

↳ user she’s had a very long and successful career there, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she decided to retire from formula racing and move onto some other series that’s more woman-friendly, all things considered 🤷‍♀️. she has been runner-up every year that she’s competed, proven that she has what it takes to make it in a higher level of formula racing, and yet not a single f1 team has even offered her the opportunity to be even a test or reserve driver? 🤨 something isn’t adding up and i don’t want to say it’s because she’s a girl in motorsports but it’s kind of hard to ignore the proof when it’s put right in front of you.

↳ user guys the keyword is “if” here, of course, bc as fun as it is to speculate it is all still speculation and we won’t know for certain until it’s revealed by official sources. silly season is called that for a reason, and for all we known y/n is drawing out the announcement of her continued partnership with prema to stir up interest. she’s been in a very loyal and secure partnership with them for years now, a partnership that both she and prema seem very happy to keep considering just how long it’s lasted.

↳ user f2 is another series that once you win the championship you are no longer allowed to compete in, so prema may have kept her around to help carry her male teammates into first place until females are more accepted in formula racing so that she could eventually move up to f1

↳ user prema’s gonna announce her as their driver with vesti and you all are gonna look so fucking dumb for this 🙄🙄

user blue is HER color now 😍

maseratimsg 💙

INSTAGRAM.

liked by maseratimsg, mickschumacher, and 297,130 others

yourusername to the women of f1 that came before me, who paved the way, this is for you.

view all 1,380 comments

maseratimsg When you race, they race with you 💙.

↳ yourusername 🫶💙

user Y/N SCHUMACHER??? IN FORMULA ONE??? IN 2023???

user i’ve been following her career for years now and this makes me so excited omg

↳ user me too!! she’ll be the first female to drive in f1 in over 30 years 🤭

user HARD LAUNCH BUT FOR THE 2023 GRID I GUESS

user when maserati announced they’d be getting back into formula racing i had no idea that also meant formula one as well?? they’ve got drivers in the 22-23 formula e season right now but this is how i found out about y/n schumacher driving for the 23 formula 1 season? i think i am going into shock

user 2023 might actually be a good year if this is how we’re gonna be going into it

user WOMEN IN MOTORSPORTS

user milf = man i love females-in-fast-cars

user been watching f1 since i was a kid, always wondered why there were no girls out there driving. this year i’ll get to turn on that tv and finally see someone who looks like me

↳ user it’s so fitting that maserati’s original f1 team also had the first woman f1 driver, and now they’ll be breaking barriers again by having another woman f1 driver in their first season back

↳ user i’m hoping they’ve got a good car ready cuz i wanna see y/n schumacher up on that podium telling everyone who didn’t believe she could do it just cuz she was a girl to eat shit and die 😤😤😤

user there’s a reason there aren’t any female drivers in f1. she’s doomed to fail just like all the others smh 🙄

↳ user the biggest reason is sexism, and y/n has consistently proved throughout her career that she is just as skilled if not more than her male counterparts. she works harder to make up for the physical disadvantages she has as a woman, and she still wipes the floor with the other drivers. she’s not “doomed to fail” she’s practically destined to succeed.

↳ user y/n has trained her ass off to be the best, and she’ll prove it when she gets out on the tarmac in bahrain, just you wait 🥱

↳ user she’s literally a 6-time f2 runner up??? sure, she didn’t win, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still incredibly fucking impressive that she’s managed to get p2 against her male counterparts 6 YEARS IN A ROW 👀👀 her brother got p12 his first season and you know what she got? p2. she’s already raced with the likes of charles leclerc, zhou guanyu, yuki tsunoda, alex albon, george russell, lando norris, and a number of other very prominent formula racing names, and she held her own against them all incredibly well. she gave her own brother a real run for his money when they were teammates in 2019 and 2020, and in 2021 she was only a 9 point difference away from oscar piastri, whereas the p3 finalist was nearly a full 60 points below both of them. get out of here with that “there’s a reason there aren’t any female drivers in f1” bullshit, because the reason is misogyny 😒🙄

user not to be that person but like??? who else is lowkey excited for potential driver x driver romance?? 🫣

↳ user nah cuz i didn’t wanna make this about that but i’m actually totally ready to see who she has the best chemistry with on the grid 🫢 first hope is charles leclerc cuz they’d be a power couple hands down but also mayhaps max verstappen?? maybe??

↳ user totally agree babes a ferrari and maserati romeo and juliet love story would destroy me 😩

↳ user the parallels are already paralleling

↳ user to add to the parallels, her and charles were teammates at prema in 2017

↳ user OMG RIVALS TO STAR CROSSED LOVERS??? 😭😭

↳ user schumacher and leclerc are about to live out THE fanfic dream i can see it now

user can’t wait to see her mop the floor with these boys next year

user 2023 IS GONNA BE CRAZY 💙💙

user if i see any of those lads talk down about her or dismiss her just because she’s a woman, it’s on fucking sight 💀

↳ user they did that campaign in 2021 about equality in racing and i am BEGGING that it wasn’t just a media ploy and that they actually believe what they said about men AND women being able to drive

user this is about to be the best f1 season in history folks

INSTAGRAM.

tagged: mickschumacher, yourusername

liked by yourusername, mickschumacher, and 619,471 others

maseratimsg Prepare for trouble, and make it double ✌️💙.

view all 1,196 comments

user SCHUMACHER TWINS TEAMMATES AGAIN???

user someone pinch me i think i’m in a dream 😳

↳ user i pinched myself and this is in fact very real

user we knew y/n would be driving for maserati but to also have MICK? maserati picked not one but TWO legacy drivers they have an agenda to push and they are certainly pushing it

↳ user yeah, an agenda to win 😌

↳ user genuinely just imagine how much natural talent and skill will be in that garage come the start of the season with michael schumacher’s twins…

↳ user back in 2020 when they raced together at prema, i saw someone joke that they were made into twins because no singular human being would be able to handle having that much racing prowess, so they were split up. but idk how much of it was actually a joke because they were scarily good as teammates? y/n has always finished no more than 10 points behind p1, and mick is a very powerful driver in his own right. putting them together and letting them drive as allies again instead of rivals will be a sight that’s for sure.

↳ user imagine being nerfed at birth cuz fate knew you’d be too powerful otherwise 😂😂😂

user blue is THEIR color apparently

user it’s the schumachers’ world and we’re just living in it

↳ user schumachers vs the entire f1 grid sounds like an insane clickbait article but the fact that it’ll be real in a few months is crazy

user everyone’s talking about y/n and mick but i’m stuck on the fact that there will finally be 11 teams driving for f1 again

↳ user maserati really said fuck the expectations

↳ user maserati’s gonna get a 1-2 with the schumachers in their first year back i’m calling it now 🤪🤪

↳ user first female driver in f1 in 30 years and first 11th team to drive in f1 since 2016, and i’m betting it’ll be first ever female driver to podium in f1 and first ever female driver to win in f1 too because i’ve seen y/n schumacher’s skill and i guarantee that if she’s actually given the ability to go all out then she’s gonna be a force to be reckoned with

user hope they’ve got a good car planned cuz i wanna see these two put up a good fight

user verstappen better watch his back 👀

user Y/N SCHUMACHER WDC 2023

user at least mick got to drive with seb still on the grid, but i’m actually heartbroken that y/n won’t be able to 😔

↳ user and kimi too

↳ user i think the only drivers left are hamilton and alonso no? from before their dad retired i mean

↳ user perez, hulkenberg, and ricciardo too, but they only drove on the same grid as michael schumacher for a couple years

↳ user i imagine it would suck to lose but i personally would be very proud to see my old friend’s kids standing on a podium above me or beside me 🥹

INSTAGRAM.

tagged: yourusername

liked by yourusername, maseratimsg, and 227,708 others

mickschumacher from beating you into this world, to beating you in karting (both professionally and casually), i'm so proud to have the chance to beat you in formula 1 too

view all 1,478 comments

yourusername those are fighting words micky 🤨

↳ mickschumacher not sure what you mean 😊

↳ yourusername it’s on sight 👊

user GUYSSS JUST THINK ABOUT THE PADDOCK INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THESE TWO

↳ user the media days boutta be crazyyyy

↳ user i’m imagining the chaos of not just having siblings on the grid together, but twins specifically, and i’m already getting a migraine on behalf of whoever their pr officers are 😅😭

↳ user 2023 is the year they make a geneva convention for the grid prank wars and it’s gonna be the because of the schumachers

user baby photos oh i am unwell 🙃

↳ user i’ve caught a nasty case of baby fever i fear

↳ user they’re both menaces as adults, i wonder how bad they were as little kids

↳ user baby fever cured methinks 😶

user 💙💙💙 MICK P1 2023 💙💙💙

user mick being proud to race with his sister but also making it well known that he isn’t gonna take it easy on her is the type of sibling rivalry content i’m looking forward to seeing this season

↳ user i need all the drivers to have this same mentality bc i know mick is gonna recognize her as the threat that she is, but if any of those lads underestimate her just bc she’s a girl, then their karma will come in the form of eating the dust of y/n schumacher’s car

↳ user PREACH 🙌🙏

charlesleclerc cannot wait to have you both on track this year

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @casperlikej

━━ a/n: first and foremost, happy international women's day! i've had this sitting around for a little while now and decided that today would be the perfect day to finally share it, what with the themes of women empowerment and breaking the glass ceiling. my main priority will still be my lando series until i can get that finished, but updates for this might appear in between on occasion. i also wanna take a moment just to appreciate the sheer amount of research that went into this, finding a team that would reasonably work well as an 11th team for formula 1 was a bit difficult, but i'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth when maserati fits pretty perfectly. also, as a twin myself, i'm incapable of writing a sibling duo that aren't also twins, and i have zero shame about that. anyways, i'm very excited for this, and i hope everyone else is as well!

#formula 1 #formula one #f1 #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #formula one imagine #f1 x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula one x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #social media au #smau #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagine #cl16 #mick schumacher

1K notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Note

PART 9 !!!!!! SO SO GOOD !!!! i’ve been driving the struggle bus this last week and even though i was a few days late to your update i was so happy !!! the social media appreciation was so sweet and i’m so glad y/n gets some positivity again :) the tension. the pacing. the yelling. the confession. omg. LOVED. IT. i’m so glad she called him out like yes he was acting like a bitch !!! but also tell me why i kinda want her to not accept the hug and be mad and bring up the phone call🤭like i KNOW it’s angsty, but i gotta say i’m an angst lover when i know the payoff will be good and that would be so worth it🤭that being said, i know i’m gonna love whatever direction u end up taking it !!! i love grealish’s continued support too like go king !!! excited for more and i hope your week is off to a good start <3

We are both on the struggle bus, it seems 😅, but as always, I'm so glad my writing has been able to help you! Hopefully, this week will be better for us both.

I've been so excited to finally have this confrontation between Lando and Y/N happen, and the fact that it has is like a breath of fresh air, haha! There is still plenty on the way, of course. I think this series will probably be one of the longest I do, just because I finish a part and realize there's still so much more that I want to include which means pushing the ending back further and further, but I have so much fun working on it that I can't really complain 😊.

I am ALSO an angst lover, however, so I can't promise that it'll be all smooth sailing from here on out, just because they've started talking again. There is still, of course, the matter of Garrett Ward and his threats, and then the elephant in the room, which is the phone call and the damage that it left behind.

Thank you so much for your kind words and continued support, however! It genuinely is so nice knowing there's someone who enjoys my work, and I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I always look forward to your messages after each part. They're very helpful in keeping me motivated 🤗❤️.

#jessie replies

2 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Note

Hello!!! :) Would you in the future maybe start a nando fic series. BRO i read the oscar one, it was so good!!! on my knees begging that you will start nando one maybe with a famous actor or singer...PLZZZZZZZZZZ 😭😭😭 not a request or something...just saying 🤗😏 <333333

I definitely will be making a series for Fernando! The goal is to eventually have one for every driver on the grid, though I'll still have one-shots and such interspersed throughout that time.

Currently, my Lando Norris series takes precedence, but I've been working on the framework for a few others in the meantime 👀, so now it's just a matter of finishing Lando's.

I'm so glad you liked my Oscar series, though! That one, as my first, will always have a special place in my heart 😊.

#jessie replies

0 notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part nine.

INSTAGRAM.

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, and 714,148 others

tagged: yourusername

mclaren As we get closer and closer to the start of the 2024 season, we thought we’d take the time to introduce new fans to the team that works behind the scenes! Starting us off, we have Y/N L/N, our personal paddock photographer! Y/N has been here with us at McLaren since 2019, and is the genius mind behind many of the photos we’ve posted throughout the years. She’s an important part of our community and helps tremendously in not only capturing our drivers in action, but also in getting the other behind the scenes members of our team the recognition they deserve. We’re glad to have her back here with us in Bahrain, and we can’t wait to see what beautiful concoctions she comes up with this year! 🧡

view all 9,147 comments

user if there is 100 y/n fans, i am one of them. if there is one y/n fan, it is me. if there are no y/n fans, i have died.

user love love LOVE that mclaren takes the time to recognize the hard work of everyone who supports the drivers

↳ user i feel like f1 promotes the racers, team principals, and pit crew so much and forgets about everyone else that makes sure these teams are able to function so seamlessly

user CAN WE GET A MEET THE ADMIN POST TOO??? 👀👀👀

user i bumped into y/n back in silverstone 2021, like literally bumped into her, and she was so sweet!!

user she’s my photography inspo 🤩

user her dedication to the mclaren team is so apparent when you think about the fact that she DOESN’T get the same recognition as the drivers, but she has chosen to work for them for what will be 6 years as of this season. she could have easily move to a different formula 1 team or even another sport entirely, but she still comes back and that’s a dedicated artist

↳ user the fact that she did a little stint over at manchester city fc and STILL chose to come back to mclaren even tho i imagine f1 has a much harsher and stricter schedule with the intercontinental travel than football does

user this is who we have to thank for all those beautiful shots of lando??? cuz if so, bless her omg 🙏🙏🙏

user in this household we appreciate the crew that works tirelessly to keep us entertained

user so tired of seeing ppl disregard her skill as a photographer just bc of who she’s dating

↳ user OMG SAME

yourusername glad to be here, can’t wait to travel the world with these amazing people 🧡

INSTAGRAM.

liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren, and 214,051 others

tagged: mclaren

yourusername locked in and ready 😎

view all 1,514 comments

oscarpiastri so glad you’ve gotten over your temporary obsession with blue 😁

↳ yourusername so glad you haven’t lost your ability to get on my last nerve 😁

↳ oscarpiastri so glad you’re still insufferable even on your best days 😁

↳ yourusername now that’s a comeback i can be proud of 🥹

user MISSED THESE LADS OH MY DAYS

user ONE DAY UNTIL TESTING GUYS

user oscar looking fine asf these days 😩 that winter break treated him well

mclaren The boys are back in town!

↳ yourusername dare i say my milkshake brought them to the yard?

↳ mclaren It certainly called us 😍

↳ yourusername you flatter me mclaren admin 😌

↳ mclaren Only the best for our best 😘

user that’s some pretty intense eye contact from lando in the last image…

↳ user he ain’t even looking at the camera

↳ user nah bruv is def looking at y/n 👀👀

↳ user I NEED THEM TO GET OVER WHATEVER HAPPENED AND GO BACK TO BEING FRIENDS CUZ I MISS THE BANTER IN THE COMMENTS

↳ user i think we should probably respect their privacy and understand that something happened (presumably in the off season) that we weren’t privy to. so long as they can both maintain professionalism around one another, they don’t have to do or “get over” anything. does it suck to see two very close friends no longer get along in the way they used to? absolutely. but we don’t know what happened or if anything even did happen. in the event that something did, we don’t know who’s involved or who, if anyone, is at fault. they’re both justified in choosing to end a friendship due to a falling out, or even if they just grew distant. but even as i say all of this, it’s still speculation.

↳ user we don’t actually know if they aren’t friends any longer or if they’ve just moved their friendship off of online platforms. it should be noted that y/n is very publicly dating someone, and idk about you, but i know firsthand how delusional fans can be. her bf’s fans could easily attack her over banter with another man, and lando’s fans could just as easily start reading into that same banter which runs the very real possibility of putting all three of them in an awkward situation where y/n is being shipped with a man that ISN’T her bf.

↳ user what about the banter she has with the mclaren admin? 🤔

↳ user context is super important here. the flirting between y/n and the mclaren admin is very obviously fake. it has been from the beginning, and when ppl “ship” the two of them together it’s for the bit and to play along with their fake bromance. lando and y/n have both been legitimately shipped together since they both started working with mclaren, which changes the undertone of the shipping comments bc ppl often genuinely misconstrue their banter as REAL flirting.

user why do comment sections related to y/n always turn into debate sessions

↳ user REAL like ain’t no way i’m reading all that

user oscar’s hair sticking up in every picture is my roman empire

user I’VE BEEN MISSING THE ORANGE I’M SO GLAD IT’S BACK 🧡🧡🧡

user wait i didn’t even realize until now that this is the first post in like a month that’s actually had public comments turned on

↳ user probably bc her bf’s loser fans have finally stopped harassing her

jackgrealish must be nice having all that sun 😒

↳ yourusername it really is, bet you’re jealous

Testing goes fine, until it doesn’t.

“A drain cover?” Lando’s voice echoes across the garage. “Another fucking drain cover?”

You purse your lips.

Yesterday, he’d been upset on Oscar’s behalf when they’d cancelled the remainder of the morning session after only a couple hours to solve the problem of the track’s dislodged pieces. He’d complained and cussed out the incompetence, and then reassured Oscar that things would be better for the third day.

But the third day is here now, and he’s even more upset now being told to pit after a measly thirty minutes for the same issue.

“This is the second fucking time━” he cuts himself off with an angry huff and runs his hands roughly through the curls of his hair, letting his fingers catch on the tangles and yanking through them in his frustration. Sweat glistens on his furrowed brow. His cheeks are still flushed from the heat of the car.

It’s the most emotion you’ve seen from him since you’ve come back.

The time you’ve already spent in Bahrain has been stilted at best. Lando continues to stick with his attempts at avoiding you, but it’s harder to do so here when your hotel rooms are on the same floor and you’re limited to the confines of the garage for most of the day. Even when he isn’t in the car, there’s not a lot to do wandering around the paddock and even if there was they’ve encouraged him to stay where he can easily be reached.

You’re trying not to be smug about it, but every time you glance over your shoulder and catch him watching you━ catch him quickly looking away when your eyes meet and he realizes he’s been caught━ you feel pleased.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned about Lando, it’s that he’s always got a limit.

If you wait long enough, stand your ground and prove that you really have no intentions whatsoever of giving in and breaking the ice between the two of you, eventually he’ll cave. When he realizes he won’t get what he wants, that he’ll have to actually put in the effort to repair what he’s broken rather than having it magically fix itself, he’ll have no other choice but to do so.

“They might not cancel the session,” Oscar chimes in, attempting to placate his aggravated teammate. “Since they already had to yesterday, I doubt they’ll do it again today.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t actually calm Lando down at all. If anything, it just reminds him again of the fact that this is the second time this same complication has happened which has him huffing angrily again and running his hands through his tangled curls even rougher.

You wince at that.

Andrea, McLaren’s team principal, steps forward. “Take a breath,” he orders, resting a heavy hand on Lando’s shoulder. “Go walk a lap around the garage or something, whatever, but I need you to calm down.”

You’re prepared for that to be the end of it, but then Andrea looks over and catches your eye. “Y/N,” he says, nodding his head towards Lando. “You go with him. Keep him out of trouble.”

Well.

You like to think you do a much better job at keeping your emotions off of your face than Lando, which isn’t hard when his features scrunch up into a pained scowl at Andrea’s words, but you can feel the pinch of your own eyebrows furrowing and the smile you send towards the team principal probably looks more like a grimace if Oscar pursed lips in your peripherals is anything to go by.

Lando storms out and you follow reluctantly after him.

He can’t really go very far, not if he wants to be within a reasonable distance when━ if━ they call him back to continue the morning testing session. So he paces back and forth and back and forth just outside the garage’s exit out into the paddock.

Your phone tells you that ten minutes pass like this. It’s the longest you’ve been alone with him in a while and his distraction lets you focus on the finer details that you’ve missed when he’s going out of his way to avoid you.

There are deep, dark, bruise-like circles that hang heavily beneath his eyes. His skin is sun-kissed and tanned from his time out catching rays during his travels, but there’s a pale pallor beneath the added color that makes him look sick. Despite his current anger and the tension coiled in his muscles just waiting to lash out and strike, his shoulders seem to droop beneath the invisible weight of whatever he’s carrying with him.

He looks small.

Lando’s always been on the shorter side, but he’s never before looked small. Not like this. Never like this.

The longer you watch, the more the back and forth pacing starts to transform into the anxious stride of a cornered animal.

You aren’t arrogant enough to assume he’s like this because of you entirely, but it does occur to you that maybe he’s having just as rough of a time as you are with the newfound distance between yourselves.

You watch him silently, for a little while longer, observing the way his stride hitches every few steps and he just barely manages to stop himself from stumbling over his own feet. He’s still running his hands through his hair. By the seventh time he practically claws his fingers through his curls you heave a sigh.

“Quit that,” you snap.

“Quit what?” He fires back with just as much bite.

You roll your eyes. “You’re gonna rip your hair out if you keep pulling on it like that.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he stops in his tracks and turns on his heel to face you with a sneer. His words drip with sarcasm. “I forgot you must be used to Grealish now, right? And I bet he’s got at least a ten-step hair care routine. I wonder, does he use unicorn sweat and essence of rainbow to keep it that smooth and bright? There’s no other possible way!”

“You’re being an asshole, Lando.”

“My sincerest apologies,” he says. “How could I ever think Grealish would use unicorn sweat of all things? He uses pixies tears, my mistake.”

You’re not sure how a few words managed to turn into this━ you’d just wanted him to stop pulling at his hair. It looked painful and he’s always been a bit tender headed. Now, instead, you can feel the anger bubbling up inside you and it seems like Lando’s frustrations about the testing delay, and your friendship with Jack apparently, have made things worse.

Like throwing gasoline onto a flame.

You scowl, “Seriously. You’re being a fucking prick.”

He throws his arms up into the air, “Why not just run off to Grealish then? Since he seems to be your new best friend and you tell him everything.”

If your life were a movie, this is the moment in time when the stars would align and fate would force everything to position itself perfect in place. Like the pieces of a puzzle, it would all work out and you’d calmly explain to Lando what happened back in January with Garrett and Manchester City, and he’d understand immediately and apologize, and you’d hug it out and then both return to the garage just in time for them to announce the testing session would re-commence.

But your life isn’t a movie, and reality feels significantly different to the scripted perfection of fiction.

The precarious security of the perch you’ve settled yourself upon comes crashing down, and the tentative balance you’ve managed to maintain since the start of February when you were back in papaya again shatters with it. Something inside you snaps. The dam has burst and everything held back comes rushing to the front like a torrential wave.

“At least he was there for me when some prick blackmailed me into a relationship at the threat of my livelihood,” you snarl.

Lando pauses for a moment. He makes a couple different faces before settling on a mix between pissed off and confused, and his arms cross over his chest. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I didn’t want to be in a relationship with Garrett Ward, Lando!” You exclaim. “He threatened that if I didn’t pretend to be his girlfriend, he’d fake some misconduct rumor and ruin my career and I was too afraid to say no because this is all I have!”

This isn’t how you’d wanted it all to go down. You’d always imagined you’d get the satisfaction of an apology, and that Lando would get drunk on cheap wine with you like old times, and you’d explain what all happened with the confidence of being a little tipsy and you wouldn’t feel ashamed because Lando’s your best friend and he’d reassure you that you did what you had to, and then you’d listen to him shit talk Garrett for the rest of the night. In the morning, he’d have some idea of how to fix it all without ruining your career, and then you’d be able to put it all behind you and go back to how things were before the winter off-season ever started.

This is far from that, but there’s a sense of relief that comes nonetheless from getting it all off your chest to Lando━ to the person you’ve wanted to talk to from the very beginning

You feel tears burning your eyes, blurring your vision. “I can barely pay my rent as is, and I’m only actually living there for a few dumb months out of the year anyway. Do you know how much worse it would be if I got kicked from McLaren too? Nobody else in the country would hire me if he followed through with what he was threatening.”

“Well,” Lando shrugs his shoulders, looking properly chastised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I fucking tried, you muppet!” You throw your arms up in exasperation and then wipe at your eyes in frustration when the tears start to roll down your cheeks. “I called you every day for a week and you ignored me! I sent you text after text after fucking text━” your voice breaks, “━and you didn’t even read them! Did you know I locked myself in the bathroom and cried every single day I had to work there?”

You glare at him.

“The only thing that made it better was Jack fucking Grealish coming into my office and telling me I could at least go to him if I ever needed anything,” you snap. “So fuck off with this whole holier than thou bullshit. You left me, and Jack took your place because I was drowning!”

“Y/N…”

Crying hadn’t been a part of your plan, but the tears won’t stop now that they’re going. It’s embarrassing. You’re already worried about just how many people heard you shouting, and now you’re even more worried about someone coming back to look for you both and finding you sobbing your eyes out.

“I’m sorry━”

Lando’s arms wrap around you, warm and strong and sure.

━━ a/n: and there we have it folks. lando is finally back in the picture! this part was a lot of fun to write, because i've been waiting for this moment since the initial fallout in the beginning. on that note, i finished getting it all whipped up this morning while watching the qualis, so if there are any mistakes that i haven't caught that's why. i was a bit distracted, so please pretend they aren't there haha!

478 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Note

just read part 8 and loved it !!! i really really like seeing jack and y/n’a relationship grow and stay relevant as the story progresses :) and i love him for hearing out oscar’s side but also making sure she knows her feelings are validated !!! im just loving all of this story tbh so whatever you upload i know i’ll enjoy🫶i hope you get some rest soon and have a great week!

Thank you so much! Teared up a bit reading this, you're messages always cheer me up 🥲🫶.

I'll definitely be doing my fair share of resting, so updates may be a bit sparse this upcoming week depending on how that goes. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things when I'm no longer stuck in a nocturnal sleep cycle 😅.

#jessie replies

10 notes · View notes

f1byjessie · 2 months

Text

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part eight.

The thing is, you pride yourself on being stubborn.

Your parents hated it━ loathed that you wouldn’t give in when they demanded you find some other career path, something stable like finance or business. They hated that you moved out instead of submitting to their whims, and you imagine they hated even more that you declined every call and never answered any of the messages they sent for months afterwards until they gave up.

You’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a particularly marketable trait, nor is it very favorable in the eyes of others. It pisses people off more than anything, especially when they badger and push and prod and all you do is stand your ground. An old boss early into your career once nearly burst a blood vessel when you resolutely refused to take pictures at a private event━ threw a fit when you stuck by your morals to uphold the privacy of the athletes involved. But it’s a feature of who you are and it’s managed to save your ass more times than you can count.

Nonetheless, you also know that there’s a time when you have to swallow your pride and give in. Garrett and his threats to your career had been one of those times. A teacher in primary school and an argument about an uncompleted assignment had been another.

The situation with Lando, however, is not.

And just because Oscar is weirdly perceptive and creepily wise for his young age doesn’t mean you’re about to change things.

Why should you be the one to talk to Lando? Why should you reach out first to clear up the misunderstanding? He’s the one who misunderstood in the first place, and he’s the one that blew up without ever even thinking to give you a chance to explain what was actually happening.

If Lando wants you to talk to him again, then he’ll have to suck it up and apologize to you first. It’s the least he could do after implying the whole world thinks you’re a slut. It’s his fault you two aren’t talking in the first place, and the fact that he has the audacity to think you’ll just lay down and take it? That you’ll hear everything he had to say and just be fine with it?

Just thinking about it has you gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles the entire ride back to your flat.

This isn’t the first time the two of you have fought. It’s not even the first time Lando has been the one in the wrong. Beyond the disagreements the initial tension had caused in 2019, your worst spat was in 2021, following his crash at Spa during the qualifications for the Belgian Grand Prix.

The crash itself wasn’t the problem. You’d never get upset at someone for something out of their control, and Lando had hydroplaned because of track conditions and nothing else. But he’d been so nonchalant about it all, brushing off the medical staff with an “I’m fine,” and a “nothing’s wrong.” That, in and of itself, is not uncommon among Formule One drivers or even athletes in general. A lot of them disregard their own bodily limits and the damage they take if it means getting to do what they love, and Lando isn’t any different.

He’d had bruises all along his chest from his seatbelt and had needed to get a precautionary X-ray taken, but there hadn’t really been anything wrong. Even still, you’d fluttered about asking if he was okay, asking if medical had anything to say, asking if he thought he’d be well enough to race on Sunday. You’d understood that he’d probably been asked those same questions a few dozen times already in that hour alone, but he’d scoffed at your worry and told you to leave him alone.

So you did, after scoffing right back at him and snapping that you were just concerned and he didn’t need to be a bellend about it.

You’d ignored him for the rest of the weekend and stuck close to Daniel. Lando had had to corner you on the plane to finally apologize, and you’d jumped right back into the swing of things afterwards, laughing and joking around like none of it had ever happened.

That short fight seems like a cake walk in comparison to what’s happening now.

Deep down, there’s a desperate need for it all to go back to how it was before the winter off-season━ back when you and Lando would get drunk in each other’s hotel rooms on cheap wine while watching shitty reality TV, when you and Lando would make up stupid games in the airport waiting for your flights, when you and Lando would gossip like a couple of school girls about all the messy drama on the grid and around the factory.

But without Oscar’s infuriatingly mature outlook on everything, and his stupidly healthy way of perceiving relationships and the people involved in them, that same desperate need to have Lando in your life is buried down beneath your rekindled anger and a very justified pettiness.

Your flat is cold, dark, and empty when you push the door open. The sound of your keys clattering against the counter when you toss them echoes, as does the thud of your bag as you let it fall to the floor by your shoes.

You need to eat, shower, and sleep━ preferably in that order━ but when you open the fridge you divert your path from the tupperware of leftovers and reach for the pack of beers you never got around to finishing awhile ago.

Lando brought it around and you’ve never been much of a beer drinker, but he’d insisted you try it, so you had. The bitterness had clung to the inside of your mouth and you only made it halfway through your first bottle before handing it off for him to finish it for you. The rest of the pack had been allocated to your fridge for when he came over next, but that had never happened.

The fact that it’s beer is annoying enough, and the fact that it’s Lando’s beer pisses you off even more, but this is one of those moments where you have to push your stubbornness aside because you don’t have anything else and all you really want to do is get drunk and watch sad movies on your couch to forget about how upsetting your own life is at present.

You can’t cry over Lando if you’re already too busy crying over a fictional character.

It’s not particularly healthy, and you can imagine Oscar with his creepy omnipotence giving you a look for it, but you don’t really have the energy within you to bring yourself to care and Oscar isn’t actually there to judge you for it anyway.

The first half of February carries on similarly. You don’t get drunk every night, but you don’t talk to Lando either and Oscar’s heaving sighs and blatant exasperation whenever he third-wheels the frigidity between you and his teammate is explanation enough to what his opinion is on your choices.

But you’re standing firm.

It doesn’t matter that your phone sits heavy in the pocket of your trousers, searing into you like a hot coal with the knowledge of how easy it would be to just make a few swipes, press a few buttons, and end this whole thing━ to give in first.

The reality is that Lando did something shitty and you aren’t going to give him the impression that he has the ability to do similar shitty things in the future and get away with them.

So you cling to your hurt and your stubbornness, and you use every mildly annoying and slightly frustrating thing to keep the flame fueled within you.

Garrett helps, too.

You’re in Woking now, which is just over three and a half hours away from Manchester. Between the distance, your new schedule packed full with preparations for testing in Bahrain and the start of the season, and Garrett’s busier schedule with the resumption of the Champions League, neither of you have been able to find the time to be able to meet up for another staged date.

And it’s making Garrett fidgety. He wants results and he wants them now. Footballers always seem to have an inability to be patient, probably comes with the fact that they’re always on the move in one way or another, and this━ his reputation━ is no exception.

He sent you a bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day, which you posted on your story with a sickening amount of heart emojis, and you’d both made disgustingly sappy Instagram posts about the day and how hard it was to be apart for the sake of maintaining the illusion of being smitten with one another in your fledgling romance.

Since then, he’s been hounding you about when you’re free and reminding you rather unkindly about just what he’ll do if you even think about using your schedule to get out of the agreement the two of you have.

He doesn’t seem to understand that you’re contractually obligated to travel the country for the next ten months, and even if you wanted to spend time with him and pretend to be his perfect little girlfriend, you can’t.

It makes your mood even worse, and when you accidentally snap at a poor intern who’s only crime was asking you the same question twice, you decide you have to do something.

“Y/N!” Jack’s voice crackles over the phone, and the way he says your name alone━ the excitement and seemingly genuine joy laced in his accent━ makes you smile. “I thought you’d forgotten about me already.”

Much like Garrett, it’s been hard to stay in touch with Jack as well. Not as hard, because at least you like Jack and it makes it that much more motivating to put in the effort to reach out even when you’re exhausted from a day’s work and faced with hundreds of images you still need to sort through and edit, but still hard.

You message occasionally about the big things. He knows you leave for Bahrain in a few days to begin set up for pre-season testing, and you know that he got “White Girl Wasted” in Copenhagen after the team’s win. He also knows, from the few times you’ve called him tipsy and crying, anything and everything about the fiasco with Lando and just how deep it goes.

“As if I could possibly forget you, what with your amazing DJ skills,” you tease back, a bit self-consious of how your voice carries in the otherwise silent bathroom.

Jack laughs, deep and hearty. “Right. I’m a proper expert now, the lessons are paying off.”

“So what I’m hearing is now I’ll have to book you in advance to make sure you can play at my birthday party?” You dig the toe of your shoe against the tiled floor.

He hums, pretending to think on it. You can almost imagine how his face looks, eyebrows scrunched up and lips pursed to stop himself from smiling, like he’s having some intensely philosophical internal debate with himself. “You know,” he says after a moment of contemplation, “as a VIP customer, I think I can squeeze you in.” You can hear the grin in his voice. “But really, me and the lads all miss having you ‘round. I imagine a lot of them don’t like coming in anymore when they ain’t got a pretty face to look forward to.”

“Grealo, you flatterer,” you laugh. “I thought we agreed it was your job now to be the pretty face? You’ve got the cheekbones for it. And the hair.”

He heaves a dramatic sigh. “The lads just don’t appreciate me like you do.”

“Figures,” you murmur in mock commiseration.

Jack chuckles again and then clears his throat. “But real talk, though. What’s going on?”

You gnaw on your lip, worrying it between your teeth for a few seconds of baited silence before it’s your turn to heave a very real and very stress-induced sigh. “I don’t know,” you start, “I’m just stressed outta my mind and I can’t really talk about it with the people here, which makes it worse. I snapped at an intern and then lied to her about why I was stressed which made me feel doubly as bad.”

“Not fun,” Jack replies.

“Not fun at all.”

“What’s got you so stressed?”

“Everything,” you groan. “Garrett won’t leave me alone about trying to schedule another outting, but I can’t just leave and spend the day in Manchester with him on a whim. The factory is really hectic with everyone getting ready to go, and I’m included in that. But he seems to think I’m doing it on purpose, just to spite him, and if I wasn’t genuinely swamped with work then maybe but that’s not the case this time and he just won’t listen.”

You run your hand down your face, pinching at the bridge of your nose to try and alleviate the ache behind your eyes.

“He’s threatening me again, and I’m trying to explain to him what’s going on, but he’s a prick as you know so of course he isn’t listening. And on top of that,” you squeeze your eyes shut, “Lando’s still ignoring me. And because Lando won’t talk to me, Oscar thinks I should talk to him, except I still don’t think it’s too much to ask for a simple apology.”

Jack hums. “You’ve got a lot on your plate, sounds like.”

“Yeah,” you grumble. “Tell me about it.”

“I think, that you shouldn’t have to talk with Lando until he apologizes. Outside of work, at least,” he starts. “What he did, what he said, hurt you a lot and you’re entitled to that hurt. And if this Oscar guy keeps pushing you to talk when you obviously aren’t ready and don’t want to, then he doesn’t sound as wise as you said he was.”

You make a noise. “No, he’s like freakishly wise, Jack. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m doing the right thing by sticking to this. I’m like, if he, of all people, is telling me I should talk with Lando, then maybe I should. Except I’m not. Because I’m pissed off.”

“And you’re entitled to being pissed off,” he says.

“It’s just messy,” you whine. “And I hate messy when it’s my life and not pretty people on TV or random logistical folks from the offices that I don’t know the names of because they never actually go to races.”

Jack hums again, “I feel you there. You just gotta take it one at a time, yeah? One foot in front of the other, and all that.”

“You got that from Rudolph,” you snort.

“Yeah,” he laughs, “and he’s a reindeer with a glowing nose and that’s pretty fucking cool so sue me if I pick the lad as one of my inspirations.”

You really do miss Jack. If Oscar plays the role of your little brother, then Jack takes the spot of the older one. His laughter is warm and friendly, familiar in the way that feels like coming home after a long day of work. From the day you walked in and found him waiting for you in your office, he’s always looked out for you.

Back at Etihad Campus, whenever the guys were telling stories, he’d always be sure to elaborate and explain who everyone and what everything is so you could feel included in it all. He was the first to take the plunge and invite you out the group dinners and hangouts, including you with the boys even when he didn’t really need to. You were a temporary addition to their team, and not even all that important, but he’d taken you under his wing and seemingly made it his mission to make you feel wanted.

He always just seems to know what to do.

“What do I do, Jack?”

“Well,” he drawls out, “with Garrett, I think you just gotta lay it out for him. Show him a screenshot of your crazy full calendar if you have to. He’ll listen eventually, you just gotta smack it into him sometimes. As for Lando…”

Jack sighs, “I think you’ve got two options here. You either keep waiting it out and hope he realizes how much of a total fucking muppet he’s being and apologizes, or you take the first step and start the convo.”

“What happened to making him jealous using Garrett?”

He makes a noise. “I don’t think you ever really wanted to make him jealous.”

“You’re right,” you mumble. You pull at a loose thread on your shirt. “Is it stupid that I think I’m still in love with him even after all this?”

“No,” Jack says. “I think if you weren’t still in love with him then you probably weren’t in love to begin with. It makes us do crazy things, things that hurt us sometimes.”

You both fall into silence.

“I wish I could go back in time and never even answer Garrett’s call,” you huff, hoping it hides how your voice cracks with emotion.

“I know you’ve already said it’d be too risky, but if you wanted to break things off with him, me and some of the other lads are all still willing to stand up for you if he tries to start any rumors,” Jack answers.

You shake your head, not caring that he can’t even see it. “It’s been too long now. If he comes out with some misconduct rumor he could just as easily make something up about the times me and him spent alone on our dates. Not to mention, with the way my comments and inbox was flooded with death threats just because I started dating him, I don’t want to imagine how bad it’d be if he purposefully weaponized his fans against me.”

You take a deep breath, “Even if my career somehow managed to survive, I don’t think I would.”

━━ a/n: i have not gotten around to editing this, so i do sincerely apologize if there are any mistakes. it's nearly 5AM and i pulled a crazy amount of consecutive all-nighters while keeping up with the pre-season testing, so my brain isn't functioning as well as it probably should be, and that's also why it took me a little longer than normal to get this out. i'm running on four hours of sleep from last night and my hopes and dreams! so, alas, if there are any grammatical errors, that's why. anyways, i hope you enjoy! i'm very excited to begin working on the next part~

296 notes · View notes