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hey-kae · 2 years

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Already So Perfect

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x female reader

Request: hi! if you take requests could u maybe write about best friend!charles turned into boyfriend!charles and before the next gp, pierre goes to your hometown to help u with a surprise for charles and after the surprise you make the relationship official?

Warnings: Language, Monaco GP 2022.

Sidenote: I rewrote this about 4 times before i ended up with this version, what explains how long it took for me to post it, but i ended really liking how it turned out so i hope you do too! Strongly recommend listening to Dandelions by Ruth B. while reading cause it came on while i was writing it and my heart went 💥

Monaco Grand Prix 2022:

After that one awful pitstop and the expletives that spilled out of Charles' mouth in pure anger and frustration as he got back on track, it all seemed unsalvageable in the monégasque's eyes. It was set in stone in his mind that this weekend would be nothing but a disappointing memory that he would have learn from only to store it away and ignore it for the rest of his life after that.

For now, he didn't really know how he'd end up dealing with the painfully fresh memory, but he knew one thing for sure: he didn't expect to look back on the weekend with a satisfied smile.

You had been watching the race from the pit lanes, switching between the Alpha Tauri garage and the Ferrari one so you would be able to listen to your two best friends' team radios. Your eyes furiously came back to the grid positions every few seconds as the race neared its end, anxiously watching for any changes in the positions.

You were in the Ferrari garage, red headphones on your ears so you could listen to Charles' radio when he was asked to box. That's when shit hit the fan and a rather good race turned into a disaster. Your body acted on its own, ripping the headphones off you ears, simply not bearing to hear Charles' angry, pained voice screaming curse words like he had nothing else to say. Because, let's be real, he probably didn't.

Your eyes closed as you realized how bad this was. It was almost painful, the silence that took over the room as Charles' name dropped down to P4. The thought of how much disappointment Charles was dealing with right now squeezed at your heart and made your throat dry.

You just let your legs carry you out of the Ferrari garage and you walked in silence towards the Alpha Tauri one, knowing that the atmosphere there wouldn't be much better but still desperately wanting to escape the heavy aura of the red-dominated room.

You stayed there until all the cars passed the checkered flag and Pierre appeared amongst his team members. He shook everyone's hands, a consoling attempt from both sides, then he finally reached you giving you a quick friendly hug that showed how much he appreciated your presence there.

You never knew what to say in these situations, so you just settled for a small "Hard luck." and a sympathetic smile. Pierre responded with a small nod and a half-hearted smile.

Seconds of silence dragged on as you and Pierre stood there.

"Vas à lui. Il a besoin de toi maintenant." Go to him. He needs you right now.

It was slightly selfish, but your heart wouldn't bear being around a disappointed Charles. You just knew you'd end up blurting out anything that would make him feel better, even if that meant spilling things you wanted to keep to yourself.

"He has Arthur and his mother with him. You're alone here, Pierre."

"No, y/n. He needs you by his side after today." He emphasized the 'you' in his statement. Even after the bad race he had, a glimmer of mischief sparkled in the French driver's eyes, twisting the meaning of his words in many confusing ways.

The questioning looks you gave Pierre made him give you a little push and a small, encouraging "Go!"

For some reason, Pierre's insistence made you hurl to the bright red garage, only to find it mostly empty except for some team members. Enough time had passed since the race. Charles had probably already passed by here and was probably even done with the media and press duties he had post-race.

Your shoulders slouched in a short-lived moment of surrender before you started sprinting to the motorhome, knowing that would be where you'd find Charles.

Thankfully, you were right. Charles was in his driver's room. He seemed to be picking up a few things and packing them in a duffel bag so he could head home.

"Charles..." You started but quickly found that your words were crushed under the weight of the situation.

He turned to look at you the second his name rolled off your lips. It might sound dramatic, but you could almost see his guard being let down, the unreadable look on his face quickly getting replaced by an honest, vulnerable one. He finally allowed his body to relax and he sat on the massage table behind him.

"I'm so sorry about today." You managed, taking a cautious step towards him.

Charles, when upset, usually kept to himself and bottled up all his feelings, so it was safe to say that you didn't expect his hand to wrap around your wrist nor for him to pull you in to stand between his parted legs.

"J'en ai marre de ça, y/n." I'm sick of this, y/n. He mumbled, pulling you close and hugging you around the stomach.

"Je sais." I know. You didn't have the right words to say so you just rubbed circles on his back with one hand and ran your fingers through his tangled hair with other, not caring that it was still slightly damp with sweat.

You hoped it helped him feel a little better, but you highly doubted that so you just let him stay wrapped around you for as long as he needed. You didn't mind staying that way until he decided he okay to pull away.

The staff, on the other hand, had other plans.

"Charles, i'm really sorry but they need to start deconstructing the motorhome." Someone spoke from outside the room. Charles pulled away, his expression scarily impatient, his eyes closed as he took a deep breath in attempt to calm himself down.

"C'mon." He disguised the urge to ask you to come home with him with the small word but you understood him and you didn't find one reason to why you shouldn't accompany him. If he needed you by his side, even if it was just as a friend, that is where you were gonna be. At least for today, you were willing to ignore your feelings for the guy that was currently guiding you out of the Ferrari motorhome towards the outdoors.

Once you were outside, you felt his hand wrap around yours. It shocked you enough that your gaze immediately shifted down to look at your hands. Charles, apparently just as surprised by his gesture, studied your face, trying so hard to read you expression and understand how you felt towards that. You didn't really know what reaction he wanted so you concealed all the feelings this gave you, keeping your expression neutral.

His lips pursed and he started making his way towards his black Ferrari. You followed him with a head swirling with a million thoughts.

The drive to his apartment was overruled by a comfortable but confused silence. Fans had stopped him on his way out of the parking space, waving at him but keeping a distance, clearly aware of the race results.

Once you reached your destination, Charles told you to make yourself at home before he disappeared into his bedroom.

"I'm gonna take a quick shower." He appeared in the doorframe, shirtless with a towel draped over his arm.

You nodded, looking away as you felt your cheeks blush. You saw him disappear again out of the corner of your eye.

Letting out a breath you were holding, you rid yourself of your light jacket and headed towards his kitchen to make him something to eat.

It was shocking how fast Charles' quick shower was. You didn't expect him to walk into the kitchen so soon, but there he was, hair still wet, watching you from one of the chairs by the kitchen table.

"You don't have to make food."

"Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

He nodded and thanked you before the room fell back into silence.

You were reaching to grab a plate when you heard Charles' voice again.

"I don't know why i feel like this is the right time to say this but I can't see you as a friend anymore."

His words immobilized you momentarily but you quickly recovered and spun around to face him.

"I'm sorry, what?" You didn't know if you were confused or hurt. Whatever it was that you were feeling, it wasn't good.

Here you were, keeping him company in his apartment after a bad race and making him food, trying to make up for his bad day and he still had the audacity to tell you he didn't see you as a friend anymore.

"I just can't be friends with you anymore," you didn't wait for him to finish. You dropped everything you had in your hands onto the counter and quickly started making your way back to his living room so you could grab your phone and get going.

However, his damn fast reactions kicked in and his arm wrapped around your waist just as you were gonna pass him.

He stood up before he continued his previously interrupted sentence.

"... i like you too much to be okay with being your friend. Je veux être beaucoup plus que cela." I want to be way more than that.

At this point, he didn't need to hold you back from walking away. That thought was long gone and instead, you quickly turned to face him. Your mind didn't register it fast enough because it just sounded too good to be true.

Pierre's insistence that you go to Charles after the race instead of staying with him suddenly started making sense.

You stared at your best friend in disbelief, you mind still processing the fact that he just said the words you thought you'd never hear from him. It seemed like you brain was too busy memorizing this moment instead of busying itself with coming up with a response.

You just stood there admiring the guy you've liked for so long, since both of you were children begging your parents to sleep over at each others' houses, and the look on his face as he expressed feelings you could've only dreamt he felt.

"Now would be the time to say something." He grimaced awkwardly, his mind already running over the list of ways this weekend could tumble even lower down the scale of catastrophe. He was desperately trying to get insight on wether or not this was a good idea.

Without even realizing what you were doing nor thinking the action through, your arms reached up and wrapped around his neck, inhaling the comforting scent of his shampoo and basking in the the comfort of being so close to him. At that moment, you literally felt him relax and exhale in relief, his own arms wrapping around your waist in a delicate embrace while he hid his face in your neck.

The fact that you could feel his heart beat against your own body gave you goosebumps all over. However, it seemed like for now the only thing you cared about was how amazingly safe you felt in his toned arms. It felt like that's where you belonged in the first place. It felt like home.

After that, Charles decided that eating on the table would put too much distance between the two of you so you ended up on his couch, your legs draped over one of his and two plates of food in your laps as he ranted about his day before he made sure to ask you about yours.

As it neared midnight, you started getting anxious about leaving alone this late, especially since you were getting sleepy.

"Charles, i really need to leave." You started getting up, but he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you even closer.

"Leaving? Why? Just stay here."

Previously, there were moments in your friendship with Charles where the limit lines blurred and you ended up cuddling in bed until both you fell asleep. You never thought it was weird since you had grown up around Charles and the both of you grew up thinking it was normal. Therefore, it didn't really make sense to him that you were planning to leave tonight after all that happened.

It barely took any convincing from his side before you were dressed in his sweats and cuddled up with him in his bed.

The night passed in a blur of confessions and sloppy kisses and before you knew it, sunlight came into the room uninvited, reminding you that even if you felt like the two of you were the only ones to exist in this world, reality still says otherwise.

You woke up to two text messages from pierre.

"I haven't heard from both u and Charles since yesterday so i guess last night went like i thought it would." The first text read, the other one being a string of winking emojis.

You didn't have time to respond since Charles, still mostly asleep, grabbed your phone out of your hand, dropped it onto the mattress and pulled you back into him as you giggled.

Silverstone Race week 2022:

A full month since monaco. A full month since you and Charles started dating.

Precisely, on the Wednesday before the british race, the 29th, a full month would've passed.

It was the Monday just before that. Charles was flying to you tomorrow, planning to spend the day here before the both of you head to Britain. Pierre, on the other hand flew in on Sunday just like you asked him to.

Throughout the past month, Charles had gone out of his way to spend as much time with you as was possible. The amount of dates he had managed to sneak into his schedule was absurd, especially since the dates involved one of you flying to the other. You wanted to do something nice for him. That's where Pierre, who was ecstatic when he found out the two of you were dating, came into play.

While watching a movie with Charles once, there was a scene where the two main characters went on a date on the beach right as sunset started. He had said that he's always wanted to try that so, naturally, you were planning to recreate that for him.

You saved up some money and rented out a section of a beachside restaurant, spilling some additional cash so they would give you full privacy and control over the space for a few hours. You insisted on the privacy part of the deal since your relationship with Charles was still a secret. No one other than Pierre and your families knew.

Along with your french best friend, you went shopping and got all the things you needed, from cooking ingredients down to small candles to decorate with.

Pierre stared complaining once he realized he was going to have to help you with all the cooking, but he still did it nonetheless, telling you that he expects any future Leclerc children to hold his name due to his big contribution in making the relationship happen.

"Dude, what the hell? We've been dating for a month! Easy on us, please." You had replied.

Tuesday noon, you climbed into your car and headed straight to the airport to pick up Charles. He met you in the parking lot and gave you the biggest kiss once he settled in your passenger seat.

As was planned, Pierre was nowhere to be found when Charles and you returned to your apartment. He was probably already finishing up the preparations of the things you had bought yesterday.

As sunset neared, you started bugging Charles that he should get up and get dressed because you wanted to show him a spot you discovered. After some bickering about that, he ended up putting on some white shorts and a loose beige button down. You couldn't help but smile as you realized he had unknowingly picked out the perfect outfit for what you had planned and that the color of his shirt was almost identical to the color of your sundress.

Halfway through the drive, you stopped on the side of the road to blindfold Charles with a bandana you brought with you. You also sent Pierre a quick message telling him he should disappear from the restaurant in about 5 minutes, then you resumed the journey.

"I don't like this, y/n. I'm getting nauseous." Charles had complained many times, even after you had parked your car and started helping him out of it.

"5 more seconds, i swear." You assured him as you guided him down the beach. Luckily, there was a pavement that gilded through the sand so he hadn't picked up on where you two were yet.

Once you reached the spot you and Pierre prepared, you turned around to make sure everything looked good before telling Charles to take off the blindfold.

It looked golden, in a way.

The sun was just about to start setting, its light harmonizing perfectly with the one coming from the littered candles and the lanterns paving the way to the dinner set up. Instead of setting up a table, you had used a big white tablecloth directly on the sand and placed many pillows and cushions on its edges. Right in the middle was the food Pierre had helped you prepare, distributed neatly on white plates. In a big bucket of ice on the side, there was a bottle of white wine ready to be served and just beside that, there was a bouquet of red tulips and white baby's breaths, the only pop of color that meets the eye.

You had chosen the tulips because they meant 'thank you' and you were thankful for Charles. The baby's breath, on the other hand, was a different story. The florist told you it symbolized everlasting love, and even though you have not said it before, but you loved Charles in a way that felt like it would most-literally define the meaning of the word "everlasting".

"You can open your eyes." You spoke after intertwining your fingers with his.

You watched Charles as he ripped the bandana off with his free hand, his expression completely changing as his eyes met the sight in front of him. His lips were parted and his eyes were glistening, his hold on your arm tightening.

"Oh mon dieu, y/n." Oh my god, y/n. He gasped.

"I don't know if you remember when you told me you wanted to go on a beach date, but i wanted to surprise you with one. Plus, tomorrow is the 29th, so it's been a month since Monaco, what means that we've-" he cut off your rambling with a passionate kiss, his lips feeling perfect against yours, an amazing combination of sweet and firm.

"Je n'comprend pas comment tu es si parfaite. Ça- Ça c'est magnifique, et toi... Mon dieu, tu es tout ce que j'ai toujours voulu." I don't understand how you're so perfect. This- this is amazing, and you... My god, you're all i've ever wanted. He said after breaking the kiss, pulling you as close to him as was possible, planting small kisses on your forehead between his words.

"Tu merite bien plus que ça, Charles." You deserve way more than this, Charles. You kissed his cheek and snuggled into his chest while he continued staring in disbelief.

Seeing him smiling like that was all you wanted out of life. Seeing his eyes glimmer with so much happiness made you want to spend forever making him happy. You were never superstitious nor religious but, standing right there with him made you want to beg every higher power and wish on every shooting star, passing airplane and dandelion that you'd get to spend the rest of your life with this man.

He looked over at you, his gaze making it hard to breathe while also setting your soul free and making your heart dance with utmost joy.

If the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime and sticks around until your very last breath actually existed, this was definitely it for you.

"I love you, Charles. I think i was already starting to in Monaco, but now i feel it so strongly and i just can't hold it in anymore." The words spilled out of your mouth once your body felt like it was overflowing with the love you felt for the man stood beside you.

To your relief, the words made Charles' smile grow.

"I love you too, mon ange." My angel. He kissed the top of your head. "Je t'aime tellement beaucoup plus que je ne le pensais possible." I love you way more than I thought was possible.

His words had such a strong effect on you. They made your heart want to escape its cage and leap towards his. You've just never felt happier.

After that, you both sat and ate.

Charles literally blushed when you gave him the flowers and explained their meanings to him. It nearly made your heart burst, seeing him so flustered over something you did.

You were sat between his legs, his arms wrapped around your shoulders in a loving embrace when he propped his phone up on one of the cushions beside him without you noticing, immortalizing the moment perfectly in a photo. You had your head tilted back slightly, your eyes closed and one your hands wrapped around his arm while the other reached behind you to cup his face as he kissed your cheek, your surroundings illuminated softly with the glow of lanterns and small candles.

The moment he showed you the picture, you fell in love with it, making him smile.

"How about we use it to let the world know? I just want post it in my story and brag about having you in my arms." He suggested in a tone that made it clear that he was just testing the waters. He wasn't going to pressure you into anything but he just wanted you to know he was ready to share this with everyone.

You quickly turned to look at him. You found him waiting for a response with full seriousness.

"You actually want to do that?"

He nodded, "As long as you want it too. We don't have to do it yet but I'll probably end up using this picture no matter when." He chuckled, looking back down at his phone screen.

You admired his smiling face and his blushed cheeks and asked yourself why you were hiding the fact that you get to call him yours from the world anyway. Looking at him alone made you grin like a lovesick idiot, for God's sake.

"Post it." You smiled and he looked up at you with so much love it nearly made you squirm.

"Tu es certaine?" Are you sure?

You nodded and kissed him.

Less than a minute later, he put his phone away, signifying that your relationship was now as public as it can get. You heart beat faster as both excitement and nervousness coursed through you, but Charles touch on your skin was quick to dispose of any negative thoughts.

When you were back home, you logged into instagram and hundreds of notifications rolled in.

You ignored them and just clicked on Charles' story to see what he had posted. Sure enough, the picture from earlier appeared on your screen, the only addition being very few words Charles added on the bottom corner.

"I don't think it gets better than this." The small text box read and right below it was your username, signifying that Charles had mentioned you.

You heart swelled at the little sentence he had chosen to add and you found yourself replaying the story over and over again before finally sharing in onto your own profile, the grin never leaving your face.

After that, you sent Pierre a quick message, inviting him over for breakfast tomorrow, thanking him repeatedly for his help and letting him know that everything went well.

"I know."

"I just liked his story." He replied, shamelessly referencing the many internet memes about him liking posts on instagram. It was funny, you couldn't deny that.

You sat and thought about the upcoming race weekend while Charles' singing voice sounding from the shower filled the apartment, grounding you and assuring you that this was in fact your reality, even if it felt too good to be true.

This weekend, you'd finally get to walk around the paddock with Charles without going out of your way to look like platonic friends like you had done the previous race. This weekend, you'd finally get to walk around with his hand in yours and with the whole world knowing that he was your boyfriend. The thought alone made your stomach fill with butterflies,

It seems like Charles was right after all. It doesn't get much better than this, does it?

How can it get better when this is already so perfect?

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booksobsess · 2 years

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Lucky Charm – Part 1

Charles Leclerc x Doctor! Reader Part 2

Synopsis: Before all their success in life, Charles and y/n were lovers and split up to focus on their professional careers. Until 10 years later y/n receives one patient in ER from a terrible car crash

Warnings: Language, car crash, nearly death, PTSD, Pierre and y/n bromance

Words count: 4'2k

A/N: I would like to clarify, that English is not my first language, so if there are some misspellings or grammar errors, I'm sorry. But feel like commenting on them so I can rectify my grammar. Also, I'm just a pharmaceutical student and I don't know the 100% process of a surgeon's processes. As well as I'm not a F1 expert.

2018

Charles and I were celebrating he officially signed for Ferrari the following year in F1. I was so happy for him, it’s been his dream for as long as I remember.

We had known each other since high school when me and Arthur got paired in a school project and your friendship with the Leclerc's began. In 2016, Charles and I got closer and ended up developing feelings for each other and have dated ever since. I went to every race he had from F3 to now being with Alfa Romeo in F1.

I had always been there for him. When Jules died, I was here. After his lovely father died, I was there. I was his mainstay. Maybe if I hadn’t been there, he would have given up everything. But my hope and perseverance knew he shouldn’t do it and kept fighting. And here we are, celebrating his Ferrari sign for the next season.

There was only one problem. We weren’t only celebrating his sign for Ferrari. I just entered Universite Paris Saclay as one of their future medical students.

“You don’t know how proud I'm of you” commented Charles smiling without taking his eyes off you.

“Are you kidding me? You just signed for Ferrari, Ferrari! That’s the biggest accomplish here”

“That’s old news. And in your defence y/n, I must add you got your dream career which is more difficult than getting to Ferrari”

You look on your lap avoiding his gaze, smiling like a 16 year old girl.

“You are blushing” said Charles with a corky smile

“No, I’m not” I said getting up from the table and walking to sit on his couch.

Charles follows you to sit next to you. He grabs your chin to make you look at him and takes your lips together.

Then he puts our foreheads together to rest and I close my eyes.

“I’m proud of you”

“I’m proud of you two”

We stay in each other’s arms in silence to make the moment last.

You both knew what getting to uni and Ferrari meant, we haven’t talked about it, we avoided it just to enjoy our possible last summer together.

But the summer was ending and we still haven’t talked about our future.

I decided to be brave and face our fears once and for all. I could already tell my eyes were getting wet.

"Esque il a quelque chose va mal?" Is there something wrong?

"Mon amour, nous devons parler" My love, we neet to talk

"De quoi?" About what?

"Vous savez ce que" You know what

And then is when everything collapses. I start crying and he comforts me saying everything will be ok, that we will get through it

"No we won't, and maybe you don't see it now but if we stay together in the future, one of us will have to give up our dreams. And I couldn't take it if you dropped out of F1 just to be with me. And as selfish as I sound I couldn't give it up either or fail in the process of becoming who I want to be"

We stay silent looking at each other until he stands up and walks to his shelf full of trophies and pictures of his family, Jules and me. Maybe he still hadn't thought about it like I have, maybe I'm the pessimistic one in our relationship and don't see a future where all this works out. Half of me thinks he understands what I'm saying and getting my point, but my other half wishes he has another alternative where we can stay together and be happy.

"I hate to admit it, but you are right. You are always right" Says Charles as he looks at our pictures.

His words shatter me and it's stupid, I was the one that brought it up, it was my idea and the one that ruined everything. I hoped he would tell me everything will be ok, and we will get through it. I really did, but reality is a bitch and we couldn't do anything if we wanted to be successful in life. And it's better to end things now in good conditions and not later in a big fight.

I stand up and walk behind him to hug him from the back, and I start sobbing more than I have ever had. He tuns just so he holds me as tight as he can.

It's not a goodbye. It's I will see you later, as friends when we will be both happy and laugh about it. And with so, we kiss one last time and he offers to drive me to my parents' house. When I open the door to get out, he says "I love you"

The saddest part is, that he is probably the only man I could ever love. So for one last time, I respond "I will always love you"

2028

It was a goodbye. That day was the end.

Charles and I have not seen each other since the day we broke up. Except I spotted him one afternoon with a beautiful brunette girl 3 years ago, when my boyfriend at the time and I visited my parents at Christmas.

I do not regret the decision I took back in 2018. In fact, that was the best decision I ever took in my life. Because ever since that, things only got better for both of us. I know he is doing well despite we have not talked to each other for years, because I had watched every Sunday Formula 1, to see how things were going.

I have not lived in Monaco for 9 years, I only came home in August and Christmas to visit my parents.

Last year after something traumatic happened, I felt I needed to come back home and with my resume, I easily got into the Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace as one of their neurosurgeons.

Today is Friday and the Monaco Grand Prix is in two days, so the streets are crowded, and a lot of nice cars are on the roads. But It doesn’t affect me, I always walk to the hospital, since I t's faster.

"Is that y/n y/l/n? Or are you an illusion?" I turn to see whose voice was to find Pierre Gasly in his car, stopped at the traffic light.

"Pierre! How have you been?"

"Get inside the car before the light turns green, I will take you" And despite the last time you saw him being 10 years ago you got in, and it seems that no time has passed.

"Let me guess, you are going to Port Hercule"

"You are so smart" We burst out laughing "Girl I haven't seen you in years, how have you been?" I was about to respond to his question but I got interrupted. "Wait, tell me where I need to drive you to. Maybe I'm going in the wrong direction"

"You are" I said with a giggle "I'm going to the Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace"

"Why? Did something happen?" Pierre asked while going all the way around the roundabout.

"I work there"

"Oh right, I remember Charles commented you got into medicine" He stops talking and gets a little tense.

"Hey, that was 10 years ago, there is no need to get tense"

"It's just that Charles never told me why you broke up and I thought it ended up badly"

"It was a mutual agreement. The reason was simple, he just got into Ferrari and I had to leave to get my medical degree. No hard feelings"

Pierre's face is pure confusion, maybe asking himself why Charles never told him why we broke up.

We chitchat for a bit until he gets me to the Hospital.

“Hey, on Saturday would you like to go to the Paddock I can get you in”

“Oh, thanks but it’s not needed, I can’t watch Saturday’s Grand Prix either. I have to work at the ER, we are short-staffed this summer and they need me. I hope it goes well!” I smile at him and I start to get off the car.

“Oh, you won’t give me my lucky kiss? It was sort of a tradition, wasn’t it?” It was, when I accompanied Charles to the races I always kissed Charles and gave Pierre a kiss on the cheek for luck. So I gave him a big hug and I kissed him on the cheek.

"I missed you Pierre"

"I missed you too, so much" He said the last word with a sigh as I was getting out of the car.

When I was entering the hospital one friend of mine came running to me.

“Girl, was that Pierre Gasly?”

“Yes, we were… we are friends”

“Can you introduce me?”

“No, today is the first time I’ve seen him in 10 years, it would be awkward.” She put on a disappointed face and I continued “Maybe if we get closer again I will introduce you” I said while rolling my eyes.

“How do you know each other?” At work, I don’t talk about my private life and less about something that happened during my teens.

“I used to be friends with Charles Leclerc family and I went to almost every race and I meet most of the drivers. Pierre was the one I got along with the most”

Her mouth makes a shape of an O and thankfully doesn’t ask more.

Next thing I know I’m putting stitches on a kid who cut his finger.

At 16:30 my turn ends and I walk out of the hospital with my friend next to me searching something on her phone. When she suddenly grabs me by the shoulders and makes me look at her. With her phone up and a picture of 18 year old me and a 20 year old Charles and the next picture it’s us kissing. Two photos that we posted on social media and circulated in some articles about our break up.

“You dated Charles Leclerc, Charles Leclerc! And didn’t tell me! He is the hottest guy ever” I close my eyes and I sigh, today it’s not a good day to remember everything.

“Yes, we dated. It’s no big deal, ok? We went to the same school and our families are friends. I don’t want to talk about it ok?”

“Did it end that badly?”

“It was a mutual agreement, he got to Ferrari and I went to university, that’s it”

Thankfully the conversation ended there and she got to her car and I continued my walk home.

After I arrived home, my phone vibrates and I grab it and see a call from Arthur, we always stayed in touch and now that I'm back in Monaco we often hang out to chat.

"y/n do you want to come to my house? We are hanging out in the swimming pool, there are some friends of mine, my brothers and some of their friends, you know Pierre right? He is also here"

Without knowing I get nervous and insecure about myself. I had thought I had everything in control and I knew I will have to see Charles again at one point. But I'm stressing out and I'm not focused to see him again, less in a room full of people.

"Ehem, that would be really nice but... I work tomorrow morning and also on Sunday so it's better if I stay home, thank you tho" That was the lamest excuse I've ever given.

"Oh, no problem, then on Sunday night there is an afterparty for the Grand Prix. And since you don't work on Mondays you must come"

Shit, I already told Pierre I wouldn't come.

"Yes I know, I found Pierre this morning and he told me, I will try to come"

"Come on y/n, you will come, end of discussion. You can't avoid him forever, besides right now you are both sing..." I immediately cut him off

"Yes, ok, thank you Arthur, I'll make an effort. Bye, have a nice day"

Despite Arthur and I always have been friends, after his brother and I broke up we never talked about it.

I was sure I'd moved on but now that I can see him again I'm scared.

It's Sunday morning and today I work all day in ER, a little exhausting but I like working under a little bit of pressure, it makes me more focused.

The saddest thing is that I won't be able to watch the Grand Prix, it's the first time I've not watched it. But it's just one time and nothing will go wrong is just another race. I will watch it when I get home.

Today thankfully was calm, since everyone was watching F1, not many incidents happened.

"Hey y/n, since everything is very calm today you can go home early, we will get through it, now you can go watch the Grand Prix" Announced me another doctor in ER, that knew I had never missed a Grand Prix.

I went to the lockers to change into my regular clothes, grabbed my purse and I got out of the room. Then suddenly the doctor that allowed me to go home ran towards me.

"Y/n! y/n!, You need to get back to work immediately, we just received a call from the ambulance. There has been a car crash and there the patient has a concussion. You are the best in these scenarios, we need you."

Immediately I return and put on my clothes as fast as possible. I think I haven't closed the locker, but that's not my priority right now.

When I get back to the ER the ambulance has not arrived yet. And then it hits me.

I'm driving in my car, there is a big hit, the car spins, there is a bigger hit and everything goes black, seconds later I remember looking at the passenger’s seat and Dorian's face is covered in blood. "Dorian! Dorian! Please answer me" red and blue, blue and red, sirens and the next thing I'm being pulled out of the car.

"Y/n! are you alright? The ambulance just arrived, come on!" I see a nurse helping me get back to reality. I hate car accidents.

But I'm running to get to the stretcher and get the patient to the hospital. When my world collapses again when I see a man in a red suit and a red and white helmet full of pictures. I cannot collapse right now. I must not. I must help Charles

And for the first time, I can control myself and my fear doesn't get me.

I grab the helmet providing a Manual in-line stabilisation (MILS), there is a nurse ready to help grab his chin and also apply pressure on the occipital region, I slowly take off the helmet full of pictures of his dad, his family, Jules and... me. But there is no time for distractions. I need to help him.

"There is a concussion! There is a second-degree burn on the left side of the neck! The patient is still unconscious!" The nurse announces and they immediately cover his burns.

After that, I do a CSF (Examination of the cerebral spinal fluid) and while we wait for the results I go to the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine to check his brain and there I see a pair of blood clots. Shit.

"Immediately we need some Heparin to undo the blood clots" The nurse passes me the needle and I inject it as fast as I can so there will be consequences.

Two hours later, Charles is in a room still sleeping, thankfully there was no complication and all the blood clots are undone. Now I'm walking to the reception where I suppose most of his team and his family are for me to give them the news.

"Charles Lecler's family?" As much as I would like to run to his family hug them and tell them he is alright I must stay professional. In the reception room, I spot Mrs Leclerc, Arthur, Lorenzo, most of the Ferrari team and some drivers, like Pierre, Lando, Max, Carlos, Lewis, ...

"Y/n dear were you the head of his case?" Mrs Leclercs asks me and hugs me with love and fear.

"Mrs Leclerc I must stay professional right now" I whisper to her ear

"Oh right, sorry" She breaks up from the hug and nods as she stays near her sons. Most faces are of fear but Arthur's one is of relief, like he knew Charles has been in good hands.

“Chales is alright, he had a concussion and a couple of blood clots but are now in control thanks to the anticoagulant, the cerebral spinal fluid thank god was not damaged. Also there is a second degree burn but it’s not the priority. Right now he is sleeping in his room, he has not yet awakened”

After that there is a big sight from everyone.

“Can we go see him?” Lorenzo speaks first, looking at me directly.

“The only ones that have authorization to go to his room right now are his family tomorrow, if he is awake and wants visitors, others can come see him”

With that Mrs Leclerc, Lorenzo and Arthur are taken by a nurse to Charles room and most of the F1 team is leaving the hospital, except Pierre and Mattia Binnoto whose last is the first to approach me.

“I must see Charles right now, we need to discuss the championship…” Without second thoughts I immediately cut him off.

“The patient needs to rest and recover fully before even thinking of racing again”

“I don’t care what you say he…” I cut him off again

“You should be worried of your driver’s health and not your stupid championship right now. I don’t want to see you again for the rest of the day, so if you do me a favor and walk off the building calmly and not make me call security. Thank you very much and have a nice day”

And with that he left with some of his crew mates that were waiting for him. And right by the corner I notice a shocked face of Pierre with his mouth open. And still looking at Binnoto Pierre walks towards me.

“I have never seen someone shut his mouth is such style” I look to see if there is someone else in the reception room and thankfully there was no one. And right there and then I colapse.

I fall into Pierre’s arms and he holds me tight.

“I thought I couldn’t do it, when I saw him in the stretcher everything collapsed. I don’t know how I…” he pulls me of his shoulder to look me in the eyes.

“You are amazing, that’s how you did it. Now be the strong y/n I’ve always know and go with him.” Pierre with one hand takes of the tears I didn’t know were falling. “You are amazing” says as he kisses me on the forehead.

“I will call you when he awakes” I make a phone sign with my hand and take it to my ear to emphasize I will call him and I walk fast to Charles room.

Once I get to Charles door one doctor comes and tells me I did enough for today and and that I can go home. And I respond by saying I will say in the patient room to check on him.

I know on the door and Arthur opens and immediately hugs me and I hug him back, and in short moment his mom and brother are also hugging me.

“Did you see what happened?” Arthur asks me. I take a look at sleeping Charles

“No, and honestly I don’t think I want to see it right now”

I don’t let them know how difficult it was for me to help him and not get my emotions overtake me, it would sound unprofessional in-front of them, even if they are like my family.

Two hours later Arthur and Lorenzo went home to change clothes and will bring some for their mother, who stayed and is now sleeping in the corner.

I’m admiring Charles, he has growing out his beard a little, he looks more mature. When suddenly his head moves and turns in my direction and his eyes open slowly.

“Y/n…. Am I in heaven?” Seriously, to all the things he could say and it's that.

"I'm not dead, you know..." I put a big smile on my face, happy that he is alright and awake.

"I know, but you look like an angel" Oh, I look away from him and I can feel my face heat up. He must feel rave from the crash.

He looks around to check where he is and notices his mother sleeping next to him.

"Maman..."

"Would you like me to wake her up?" He turns to look at me and shakes his head.

"What happened? Why are you here?" Charles asks as he looks at the bed and the room, the second question although it shouldn't it hurts me.

"I can go if you want me to" I start to get up, of course, he doesn't want me here, it's been 10 years stupid. When a hand retains me by the wrist.

"Please stay, don't go" He puts on a puppy face for me not to leave him. and I sit back down.

"There was a car crash during the race, you got a concussion and we gave you heparin. You are still under supervision, and I'm here because I was the doctor in charge of your case" He puts on a sad face and immediately asks if anyone got hurt in which no one else got hurt thankfully. And also asked who was the winner but the race was suspended.

Right after that his mom awakens and starts showering him with kisses and a minute later his brothers arrive with clean clothes for him and his mother.

"You are in good hands, I will get going home" While still talking with his family he cuts the conversation and looks at me.

"Y/n, you live here?" He asks surprised.

"I live and I work here, I'm back home" Charles changes his worried face to a more relaxed one, with the thought of home.

"Please come again tomorrow" He says it like a command but immediately rectifies himself "If you don't have any other plans obviously" I smile at his response.

"I don't work tomorrow but if you want me to I will come to visit and I will also take advantage of it by checking your vitals" With a smile on everyone I get out of the room and go home to rest.

The next day in the morning I had to run a few errands and I also went to buy Charles a few things from the supermarket, flowers and a nice bracelet I saw in a shop window and immediately thought of him.

When I get to the hospital there is a lot of media waiting to get any news on him or to see him leave the hospital and bombard him with questions.

I put on my white coat, even though I don't work today, and I walk to Charles room. When I knock and get in it surprises me to only find Charles in the room eating a pudding.

"How are you feeling today?" I asked while leaving his presents on his feet.

"Are you asking this as Dr. y/l/n or as y/n?" He asks me while grabbing his presents and leaving the pudding to the table. "Also you didn't have to bring all of this"

"I'm asking as both" he looks at me with a friendly smile "Oh that it's nothing, I know the hospital food is trash and that it just reminded me of you"

"I find that pudding quite good actually" I laugh at his comment and he smiles back at me.

"I missed it"

"What?" I asked while I'm sitting on the chair

"Your laugh" I blush and look away and immediately try to change the subject.

"I thought the room will be full of people"

"Oh" he says looking all his room full of flowers and presents "It was, at 7am the first to come was Pierre"

"I know, he told me" He puts a questioning face and I reply to him and explain to him we bumped into each other on Friday.

"I know, he told me too" I sigh at his response

I check at his vitals and the notes the nurses put on the document and I notice everything is fine.

"Seeing everything is alright and no complications occurred, and as I'm your doctor, I can give you the discharge and you can be out in a couple of hours"

He puts on a sad face as soon as he sees me talking about work, but that's the main reason why I came here. Wasn't it?

"Can we talk first? I haven't known anything of you for years and I would love to catch up"

"I would also love to catch up in your life"

"Since my fabulous doctor gave me the discharge today" says as he laughs "We can meet up at my place tomorrow morning? Is that good with you?"

"It's good for me"

"Perfect, it's a date then"

Part 2

A/N: I know there is not much of Charles in it and is a little long but I feel like the background of the MC is important for you to understand her.

@livinghappy10 @mekraycom @mrscevans @dreamer-grl @gwynethhberdara

#charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x y/n #charles leclerc #cl16 #ferrari f1 #ferrari #f1 imagine #driver x reader #charles leclerc x reader

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swan-of-sunrise · 3 years

Text

The Winter Soldier (Chapter Two)

Summary: While visiting the Smithsonian, (Y/N) runs into Steve Rogers for the second time in two days.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings/Disclaimers: None

A/N: Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Two (Previous Chapter)

“You know, this car’s a little…cramped.”

(Y/N) crossed her arms and stared down Sam as he drove down the crowded street. “If you don’t like my car, then you can walk all the way to the VA and I’ll take it.”

He only chuckled. “Cool your jets, Booksmart, I never said I didn’t like it; I was only making a statement.”

“Well, keep your statements to yourself, Birdbrain; I can handle you insulting my music and I can even handle that goddamn nickname but if you insult my baby again, I’ll be forced to kill you.” Giving him a final glare, she looked out the window as they approached the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. “I already texted Rita and told her that I might be a little late to the meeting, but could you remind her for me?”

“Of course; are the coffee grounds still in the upper kitchen cabinet or did she move ‘em somewhere else?”

“As far as I know, they’re still in the kitchen cabinet but she might’ve moved them again. I swear, that woman has no sense of organization whatsoever.” The car came to a stop at the curb. “Thanks for the ride, Sam! And take care of my baby!”

Sam reached over and gave her a one-armed hug. “Don’t worry, your baby’s safe with me. Have fun with your research!”

(Y/N) got out of the car with her messenger bag and closed the door, giving Sam a small wave as he pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic before making her way to the enormous building. After buying her ticket, she began wandering around the museum, a little surprised by how crowded it was for a Tuesday morning. Must be field-trip day, she thought with a grin as several small children in school uniforms rushed past her. To help her focus on her research, she put one earbud in and switched on her MP3 player; she snorted in amusement when she hit shuffle and ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John began playing.

She walked through the largest room, which was filled with dozens of aircraft, and she made a beeline to her favorite: The Spirit of St. Louis, flown from New York to Paris by Charles Lindbergh. Since she was a little girl, it amazed her how he was able to achieve something that should’ve been impossible to do in that day and age and his accomplishment inspired her, especially now that she was finally working towards her own dream to become a writer. A shame the guy ended up being a shitty racist, she thought to herself as she glanced at the famous airplane.

After that, she came across a Soviet Cold War-era missile and spent nearly a half an hour taking notes on its appearance and the background information on its display card. She couldn’t find any American Cold War-era missiles so she took out her earbud and went to ask an elderly security guard where she could find one. When she explained that she was researching for her novel, the older man excitedly led her to one and began giving her a detailed history of it for at least a half an hour. When he finished, her hand was thoroughly cramped but she had four pages full of extremely helpful notes; she thanked him profusely for his help and decided to take a break from research in order to grab a sandwich in the museum’s restaurant. Once she found an unoccupied table and began on her turkey and Swiss sandwich, she checked her phone and found a couple of texts from Sam.

Birdbrain: How’s the research going? You’re supposed to be looking at Cold War missiles, not the biceps on the Captain America mannequin!

Birdbrain: Btw, Rita forgot where she moved the coffee so I had to go and buy some more ☹ She’s officially not in charge of refreshments anymore lol

Smiling to herself, (Y/N) typed back a quick reply.

(Y/N): You’re hilarious, Sam. Research is going great, I’m taking a break for lunch before I do anymore. Lol I call dibs on NOT telling Rita the bad news, she might stop bringing in fresh baked cookies every Friday if I offend her!

Once she finished her lunch, (Y/N) grabbed her messenger bag and made her way back into the museum. Just as she reached for her notebook and earbud again, a brightly lit sign caught her eye. It showed a large photograph of Captain America with the words ‘Captain America: A Living Legend and Symbol of Courage’; a steady stream of people was filtering towards the exhibit. I’ve got a lot of research done already and if I don’t see it, Greg will talk my ass off about it for the rest of time, she thought with resolve before following the crowd into the exhibit. She couldn’t deny that she was also a little intrigued; as a child she loved learning about all areas of history, but she remembered that studying Captain America had been the most interesting part of sixth grade U.S. History for her.

The exhibit was filled with dozens of artifacts from Steve Roger’s life, including one of the motorcycles he rode during World War II and some clothes that belonged to him before he received the super-soldier serum; every so often a narration would play from the speakers, detailing the super-soldier’s life.

“A symbol to the nation. A hero to the world. The story of Captain America is one of honor, bravery and sacrifice.”

While most of the other people in the exhibit were crowded around the displays of him during the war, (Y/N) chose to read the displays about the younger Steve Rogers first. A photograph of a young man with a thin face and frail-looking body was accompanied by a plaque that described Steve Rogers as a sickly young man who was always in poor health. However, (Y/N) could see a fire in his eyes that told her there was so much more to him than that.

“Denied enlistment due to poor health, Steven Rogers was chosen for a program unique in the annals of American warfare. One that would transform him into the world’s first super-soldier.”

The next display showed a picture of a kindly-looking older man with glasses and a laboratory coat shaking hands with a smaller Steve Rogers. Dr. Abraham Erskine, she thought with a smile; her older brother had admired the German scientist while they were growing up, so she already knew a lot about him. She always thought that it was sad how most people didn’t know the name of the brilliant scientist who helped create such an impactful hero as Captain America.

“Battle tested, Captain America and his Howling Commandoes quickly earned their stripes. Their mission: taking down Hydra, the Nazi rogue science division.”

The next display was larger, showing seven mannequins dressed in the uniforms of Captain America and the Howling Commandoes. It was accompanied by short biographies of each man, except for Sergeant James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes; he had an entire display dedicated to him and after reading about the others, she made her way over to it.

“Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service to his country.”

She felt sick to her stomach as she read how he was tortured after being captured by Hydra in 1943; the smirking picture of him from before the war showed her that he had been so full of life, and it was all the more saddening to see the dates at the bottom of the display: 1917-1944.

Looking up at his photograph, she sent the Sergeant a silent thank-you for his service before turning back to look at the displays from Steve Roger’s early life that included some sketches he’d done before the war. It was fascinating to read about his early life during the Great Depression, but she was a little miffed that none of the displays discussed how he dealt with living in a world where physically-disabled people were being actively discriminated against and vilified by the Nazis. Inspiration hit her like a freight train; she pulled her notebook out of her messenger bag and quickly jotted down some information about Steve Roger’s early life and what she already knew about the persecution of the disabled in the 1940’s. That could be the topic of another book, she thought with a proud smile as she wrote, the world should know more about this.

With her nose still in her notebook, she turned and ran face-first into a man’s chest; she dropped her notebook, scattering loose paper everywhere and making her quickly drop to the floor to gather them.

“Sorry! Here, let me help you with that,” The man knelt before her and picked up several pieces of paper. “I wasn’t paying attention, I’m sorry-”

“I’m the one who should say sorry, I was so wrapped up in writing that I didn’t see…” She glanced up and her voice nearly faltered when she realized who he was. “Steve?”

Steve’s head shot up from the papers he was organizing and his azure eyes widened with recognition from underneath the brim of his baseball cap. “(Y/N), right? From yesterday morning?”

“That’s me,” Silently cursing the blush in her cheeks, (Y/N) took the papers from his hands and stuffed them all inside her notebook before they stood. “What brings you to the Smithsonian?”

Steve shrugged noncommittally as he adjusted the bill of his baseball cap. “I had the day off, and I guess I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. What about you?”

She smiled and gestured to her notebook. “Research. I’m writing a novel, so I was looking up information on Soviet Cold War-era missiles. Then when I finished with that, I thought I’d also see what all the fuss was about. I actually had another spark of writing inspiration before I smacked into you just now.”

“You’re a writer? Have I heard of any of your work before?”

“Well, this novel I’m working on is actually my first.” They moved farther away from the display so that some children could get a better look. “I’m trying to become a historical fiction novelist, and I chose to write about the Cold War for my first novel.” Steve nodded in interest and glanced back at the display before them. “So, what do you think? Is everything here historically accurate?”

That made Steve smile. “Pretty much. What do you think of it?”

“I don’t really know yet; on one hand, I think it’s great that an exhibit like this exists to educate people, especially children, about history, but part of me can’t stop thinking that it’s also an invasion of privacy.” Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion so she continued with a gesture towards the display. “Like these, for example. These are private sketches of your family and friends that I’m sure you never meant for others to see. And over there, they have your underwear on display, for God’s sake!” Steve let out a small chuckle. “I don’t know, I think that they should show more respect when they create exhibits like this, especially if the person they’re about is still alive. You may be Captain America, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a little privacy, too.” She glanced up at Steve, who was looking at her with a curious expression in his eyes. “What is it?”

Steve shook his head, a smile making its way onto his face. “Nothing, you just sound a little different from most of the people I’ve met since coming out of the ice.” They both looked at the display in silence for a few moments; (Y/N) wanted him to elaborate on his statement but she also didn’t want to pry. “It’s lucky that I ran into you, actually, I was gonna try and stop by the VA today but I have no idea what the address is.”

She nodded and pulled out her phone. “Oh, I’ve got it right here! Let me see, where did I-ah, found it! It’s 50 Irving Street Northwest. All you have to do is go down North Capitol-wait, it might be 6th Street instead…and of course, no signal in here…urgh, if I had my car with me, I’d just give you a ride since I’m going there later anyways but Sam took it to work this morning…”

“I could always give you a ride, if you want? It’d be no trouble at all.”

(Y/N) smiled brightly, touched by his sincere offer. “Okay, then. I’m pretty much done here, so just let me know when you wanna leave.”

“Let’s go,” Steve shoved his hands into his pockets and the two of them left the exhibit. “So, how far along are you with your novel?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“…so anyway, my publisher convinced me to change the title to For Queen and Country. I’d hate to boost his ego, but it sounds a lot better than anything I thought of.”

The two of them walked across the National Mall towards the large parking lot. “In my day, authors usually sent a completed novel to a publisher instead of sending it in separate parts. I guess that’s changed, too?”

“No, that hasn’t changed; this publishing company’s co-owned by one of my old friends from high school who also happens to be the only person I trust to edit my writing. My situation is a little unorthodox, though; to convince his publishing partner to give a first-time novelist like me a chance, he’s been giving him some of my short stories to read. His partner likes them so far, so as long as I keep sending in things that he enjoys he might agree to publish my novel once it’s finished.”

“Sounds stressful.”

(Y/N) shrugged and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag. “Well, it’s not ideal but it makes balancing research and work a little easier, and I’m not about to quit now, not while I’m so close to being published. But what about you? What’re you doing to keep busy these days?”

Steve kept his eyes trained on the Washington Monument in the distance. “I work for S.H.I.E.L.D. Whenever I have some free time I read the internet and go through my list to mark things off. I didn’t have much to do this morning, so I listened to some of the soundtrack from American Graffiti; it’s not what I’m used to, but I liked it. All the songs sound unique from one another.”

“Right? My mom was born in the sixties so she grew up listening to that type of music. Whenever my brother and I had to help on chore day, she’d put on her old records so that we’d have something fun to listen to while we cleaned the house.” They reached the parking lot and began walking through the aisles. “Sam thinks that music from that era is too cheesy, but this is also the guy who thinks that Marvin Gaye’s better than Jimi Hendrix so what the hell does he know?” Steve stopped next to a motorcycle and her heart leapt in her chest at the sight. “Is this yours?”

He nodded. “Yep, it’s a Harley-Davidson Street 750. The one back there in the exhibit’s a Harley, too, a modified ’42 WLA Liberator. I’ve always preferred motorcycles to cars, so it was nice to see that they haven’t changed too much over the-” He glanced at her and his face instantly fell. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you that I didn’t have a car. If you’re not comfortable with-”

“No, no, it’s okay, I’ve always wanted to ride a motorcycle!” He looked surprised by her answer but smiled back nonetheless. “Do you have a spare helmet?” He pulled it out of the back compartment and handed it to her, and she quickly put it on. “Wait, what about yours?”

“Super-soldier, remember?” Steve flashed her a teasing grin before swinging his leg over and sitting down. “Hop on.” Once she clambered on behind him and adjusted her messenger bag, he said, “I’ll be able to hear you over the engine noise, so feel free to give directions as we go. And make sure to hold on tight, okay?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Steve chuckled before revving up the engine and backing up out of the parking spot. Startled by the sudden movement, (Y/N) quickly moved her hands from beneath her seat to Steve’s waist. He seemed to be expecting this, because he immediately took hold of her hands and gently pulled so that her arms were wrapped tightly around his torso. With that, he took off down the street and she couldn’t help but let out a laugh of delight before instructing him on where to go. He was a responsible driver for the most part, but every once in a while he’d speed up suddenly, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise and tighten her hold on him each time as his body shook with suppressed laughter. After about fifteen minutes, they finally reached the VA.

As soon as he parked in front of the building and switched off the engine, Steve turned to her with the widest smile she’d ever seen on him. “So, how was your first ever motorcycle ride?”

“Amazing!” She let go of him and stumbled off of the motorcycle before pulling the helmet off. “I might even have to trade in my baby for one!” Steve’s eyes widened in alarm and (Y/N) hastily explained, “No, no, that’s just my dumb nickname for my Volkswagen Bug! I don’t have an actual baby, of course, and if I did I certainly wouldn’t trade it…um, so yeah, no baby…and no guy, either, in case you’re wondering. I’m single, single like a Pringle.” (Y/N)’s feeble smile fell and she groaned in embarrassment at her own cringe-filled words. “You can stop my dumb rambling anytime now, Steve…”

Steve’s amused smile only widened. “Don’t worry, it’s not dumb. Entertaining, yeah, but definitely not dumb.”

“You know, you’re a lot more of a pain in the ass than the history books make you out to be.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply but his phone went off in his pocket, so he quickly reached for it. His smile fell as he read the text and when he looked back up, he had a familiar guarded look on his face. “I’m sorry but I’ve gotta go, something just came up. I’ll try and make it for the end of the meeting, though.”

“Okay, I’ll be sure to let Sam know!” She got out of the way as Steve revved up the engine again and pulled out of the parking spot; after giving her a half-hearted wave, he sped off onto the street and disappeared from view. I wonder what came up, she thought with a frown as she hurried into the VA, giving Maria at the front desk a wave of greeting. Whatever it was, it seemed important but she was glad that she was able to spend a little more time with him.

“Hey Booksmart, I was just setting up, Rita left when I told her the bad news so-geez, what the hell happened to your hair?” Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise as she entered the small meeting room.

(Y/N) hastily ran her fingers through her tangled locks. “Honestly, Sam, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. By the way, you’ll never guess who I ran into at the museum!”

Sam went back to stacking empty cups next to the coffee maker. “Was it that annoying chick from the grocery store, the one who tried to steal the bananas from our shopping cart that one time?”

“No, not her. Steve Rogers.”

“Wait, you’re telling me that the dude visited his own exhibit? That must’ve been weird for him.”

She nodded and began folding napkins before neatly stacking them in a pile. “Yep, and he said he’s gonna try and come to the meeting today.”

“Nice…looks like you’ll be able to stare into those pretty baby-blue eyes again, girl.”

“Oh, you mean like how you stare at Maria from the front desk all the time, Birdbrain?”

“…Touché.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Thank you for reading! I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BenknAqQQnOWY8NmSa23V

Tagging: @mrs-obrien @lahoete @awkward117 @cminr @momc95 @awkwardnesshabitat @marinettepotterandplagg @khuang3 @supersouthy @benakenalove @brooke0297 @hufflepeople @becausewelie @outoftheregular @supreme-tantrum

Chapter Three

“The Winter Soldier” Masterlist

#steve rogers x reader #captain america x reader #steve rogers #sam wilson #captain america fic

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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Is America’s Second Corona Wave a Political Hoax? For several weeks, just as most states across the United States began to reopen, following three months of lockdown to “flatten the curve”, several states including Texas and Florida began reporting record new numbers who tested positive for the coronavirus. At least that is what the world is being told. More careful investigation suggests what is unfolding as a huge manipulation of coronavirus tests that includes collusion by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the same CDC who badly bungled initial rollout of the virus tests in March by distributing tests that were found to contain traces of the virus and other serious defects. The present scandal bears the earmarks of more than mismanagement. It looks like political collusion to influence the November election and far more. It seems that today something is very, very rotten in the State of Texas. The same for Florida, California, Arizona and many other states who just after reopening, now have again imposed lockdown and the foolish and ineffective mask-wearing and social distancing. Yet if we look at the actual data for deaths attributed to the coronavirus, since around the middle of April, the daily deaths designated of COVID-19, whether “with” or “of”, has steadily dropped to a level some 90% below the peak. Even the highly corrupt CDC has had to admit “Nationally, levels of influenza-like illness (ILI) are low overall…Changes in indicators that track COVID-19-like illness (CLI) and laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 were inconsistent during the most recent week, with some increasing but others decreasing.” Then the weekly CDC report updated 17 July, makes the following statement: “Based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 8.1% during week 27 to 6.4% during week 28, representing the twelfth week of a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC… Nationally, ILI activity remains below baseline for the thirteenth week but has increased for 5 weeks now.” Note the language very closely. The CDC defines ILI as “Influenza-like Illness.” So are we talking about tests for presence of a specific virus, SARS COV-2, that is blamed for the Wuhan outbreak that apparently has spread globally since the beginning of 2020? Or is it “influenza-like” illnesses, a catchall which may or may not include the coronavirus? The CDC has cleverly lumped deaths whether from pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 into one neat basket of death cause they call PIC– Pneumonia, Influenza or COVID-19. All PIC deaths are now conveniently designated as COVID-19 per CDC instructions on a death certificate. Even with this sly sleight of hand, the CDC cannot hide the fact that all PIC deaths across the USA have declined for twelve weeks now. How to keep the nation in a state of fear and lockdown longer and how to satisfy the agenda of unscrupulous Democrats who seem willing to do everything to weaken the economy to force defeat of the Republican Presidential candidate on November 3? A ‘Cases Pandemic’? The response has been a dramatic ramping up of the number of tests on citizens for coronavirus or more precisely for an indirect test of antibodies or other signs that may or may not indicate a person has SARS COV-2. Around the middle of June as most states were rightly opening up to more normal conditions, the CDC pushed for a massive increase in testing. Naturally a dramatic increase of those tested will give an increasing number of persons who also test positive for indications of coronavirus. Just as Trump and many state governors were sensibly advocating steps to reopen, the CDC began pushing for a dramatic increase in tests. Testing went from about 150,000 to more than 700,000 per day. Reuters reported that many of the CDC-approved tests were contaminated as well. Now the case of Texas is exemplary of what seems to be going on. According to officials in Texas in contact with former US Congressman Ron Paul, himself a medical doctor, the Texas State Department of Health Services changed the definition of what constitutes a “Covid case” in mid-May when cases were in significant decline. The new definition states, “while previously the determination of a Covid “case” was a confirmed test result, the definition was suddenly changed to count “probable” cases as “cases.” At the same time, the threshold for determining “probable” was lowered to a ridiculous level.” Basically if you have a fever and headache, even without a corona test, you can be listed as a “probable COVID-19 patient.” It gets worse. Based on possibly unrelated subjective criteria, up to 15 people in possible contact with that “probable” case were also listed as “probable cases.” And “probable cases” were considered cases. Presto! Texas is in panic and mandatory masks and other draconian measures imposed. Further, the Texas health officials added to the fears by reporting hospitals in the state were being flooded by corona patients. Yet when contacted, Houston hospital directors themselves, said they were nowhere near actual capacity and in fact were about the same level as they were last year. Texas has a Republican Governor and is a critical state for Trump in November. Florida Too… In Florida where the Republican Governor came under heavy media attack for allowing the beaches to open and other steps, as cases there were dramatically down in “The Sunshine State,” the recent spike in corona “positive” cases is equally suspicious. A local Florida TV station became alerted when they saw a breakdown of lab tests many of which showed that 100% of all tests were “positive.” The TV station contacted test labs across the state. What they found was eye-opening. TV reporter Charles Billi noted, “We found numerous labs that are only reporting positive test results, so they show a 100-percent positivity rate. That got our attention.” They located twenty-two labs that reported 100-percent positivity rates. Two labs reported 91.18-percent positivity rates. Such results suggest something rotten somewhere. Further investigation showed that many labs did not even report negative results. But when the TV journalists contacted the various labs to question the shocking numbers, data suspiciously changed. One lab, Orlando Health, had a 98 percent positivity rate. “However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.” Similarly, Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had a positivity rate of 76 percent. “A spokesperson for the VA told FOX 35 News on Tuesday that this does not reflect their numbers and that the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent.” That is a huge difference. No surprise that COVID-19 “infections” showed an alarming rise in Florida in recent weeks. As of July 14 Florida state health officials had not replied to requests from the journalists for comment. Citing a dramatic rise in corona positive tested persons, California Democrat governor Gavin Newsome on July 14 reversed his decision to allow reopening of schools, offices, public malls and churches, though protest marches like Antifa or BLM are permitted, it seems. That decision in a state of 40 million and the largest state economy, will deal a severe blow to any USA economic recovery before November. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom last month ordered that ballots be mailed to all of California’s 20.6 million voters for the Nov. 3 general election. Changed Narrative These cases indicate the huge, stinking miasma surrounding the entire subject of risk to the American population from SARS COV-2 and a political agenda that could have ominous consequences for the democratic process in America. The influential political forces backing the NIH guru Tony “trust science” Fauci– who has been consistently wrong in his advice, but always pushing the most draconian lockdowns and testing and vaccines–clearly are trying to continue the destructive lockdown until the November US elections. They seem willing to engage in any and every manipulation and panic promotion to do that. Now they have simply changed the narrative. Three months ago Fauci and others said the goal of the lockdowns and social distancing—something never before done in modern public health—was to “flatten the curve” of new coronavirus cases so hospitals would not be overloaded. That overload rarely happened. Now with hospitals nearly empty across the nation, the narrative has shifted to the meaningless number “new coronavirus cases,” which in fact mean new numbers tested with tests whose reliability has repeatedly been called “unsatisfactory” or worse. Stanford University’s Dr. John Ioannidis points out that the COVID-19 fatality rate for those under the age of 45 is “almost zero,” and between the ages of 45 and 70, it’s somewhere between 0.05% and 0.3%. So, the fact that young and middle-aged adults are testing positive in large numbers is not a warning sign of an impending onslaught of deaths, as the risk of death in these age groups is minuscule. The COVID19 Curve has been “flattened.” Politics is steering the USA COVID-19 events, but not the politics Fauci and the Governor of California claim. This could have catastrophic social and economic consequences if it continues.

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renegadepharmacist · 5 years

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An onslaught of pills, hundreds of thousands of deaths: Who is accountable?

By Joel Achenbach, Lenny Bernstein, Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg

July 20 at 7:53 PM

Logan County, W.Va., saw more than 45 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills between 2006 and 2012, according to a DEA database. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

The origin, evolution and astonishing scale of America’s catastrophic opioid epidemic just got a lot clearer. The drug industry — the pill manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers — found it profitable to flood some of the most vulnerable communities in America with billions of painkillers. They continued to move their product, and the medical community and government agencies failed to take effective action, even when it became apparent that these pills were fueling addiction and overdoses and were getting diverted to the streets.

This has been broadly known for years, but this past week, the more precise details became public for the first time in a trove of data released after a legal challenge from The Washington Post and the owner of the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia.

The revelatory data comes from the Drug Enforcement Administration and its Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS). It tracks the movement of every prescription pill in the country, from factory to pharmacy .

[Explore The Post’s database: Find the data for where you live]

Retired from the DEA, Jim Geldhof is a consultant for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the drug industry. (Mark Abramson for The Washington Post)

“This really shows a relationship between the manufacturers and the distributors: They were all in it together,” said Jim Geldhof, a retired DEA employee who spent his 43-year career working on drug diversion cases and is now a consultant for plaintiffs in a massive lawsuit against the drug industry. “We’re seeing a lot of internal stuff that basically confirms what we already knew. It just reinforces the fact that it was all about greed, and all about money.”

The industry has denied that vigorously, blaming criminal doctors who prescribed opioids as if they were candy and individuals who abused the drugs. The industry also contends that the DEA had all the information it needed to stop diversion of pills into the black market.

“The DEA has been the only entity to have all of this data at their fingertips, and it could have used the information to consistently monitor the supply of opioids and when appropriate, proactively identify bad actors,” said John Parker, spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based Healthcare Distribution Alliance. “Unlike the DEA, distributors have no authority to stop physicians from writing prescriptions, nor can they take unilateral action to halt pharmacies’ ability to dispense medication.”

The DEA declined to comment this past week, citing pending litigation.

It appears that failures mark every point along the supply chain — from manufacturers to distributors to pharmacies to the doctor all too ready to write a script. The epidemic was not something out of sight, behind closed doors, under a bridge. In full view, it intensified and the companies, health care professionals, law enforcement officials and government regulators were unable or unwilling to stop it.

The Post had made public a significant portion of a government database that records the flood of prescription opioid pain pills distributed across the U.S.VIEW GRAPHIC

The Post had made public a significant portion of a government database that records the flood of prescription opioid pain pills distributed across the U.S.

“We have a tradition of trusting companies, and the [government] is kind of weak here,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford professor who served as a drug policy adviser to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “Here it was misplaced trust.”

The data shows a trend in pill distribution that, according to the lawsuit plaintiffs, can’t be passed off as reasonable therapeutic medical treatment.

The industry shipped 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills across the country from 2006 through 2012, the period covered by the ARCOS data released this past week . These pills didn’t flow in a steady stream but were more like a flash flood, spiking from 8.4 billion in 2006 to 12.6 billion in 2012. As a point of comparison, doses of morphine, another mainstream treatment for severe pain, averaged slightly more than 500 million a year throughout the seven-year period, according to the data.

[Five takeaways from the DEA’s pain pill database]

The industry was supposed to self-regulate. Companies have an obligation, under the Controlled Substances Act, to report suspicious orders of prescription drugs. The plaintiffs suing the drug companies allege that the incentive structures were tilted in favor of moving more product.

A new Mallinckrodt logo is unveiled in St. Louis in 2013. (Whitney Curtis/AP Images for Mallinckrodt)

For example, in a filing released Friday, the plaintiffs alleged that Ireland-based drug manufacturer Mallinckrodt gave the sales people in charge of generic opioids “key roles” in investigating suspicious orders of drugs. The compensation scheme “was weighted heavily to favor sales over compliance,” the plaintiffs allege, adding that bonuses for the sale of opioids could exceed six figures.

“In contrast, there is nothing in the record indicating that [national account managers] were evaluated based on their compliance responsibilities” or “ever penalized for failing to stop suspicious orders,” the lawsuit claims.

[Internal drug company emails show indifference to opioid epidemic]

After the release of the ARCOS data, Mallinckrodt said in a statement that the company produced opioids only within a government-controlled quota and sold only to DEA-approved distributors.

As of September 2012, Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli-based manufacturer of generic drugs, didn’t have a suspicious-order monitoring system in place, according to the court filing. The company apparently decided it needed a system, and hired an AmerisourceBergen employee in 2014 to design it. He created a system called “DefOps,” short for “Defensible Operations,” which he admitted in a deposition was designed “to keep Teva out of trouble with the DEA and because it ‘sounded good,’ ” according to the court papers.

From 2013 to 2016, the papers allege, Teva reported only six suspicious orders out of 600,000.

Teva declined to comment Saturday.

The new details have made more nuanced and complex the familiar narrative of the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the drug epidemic. Many Americans knew about the role of Purdue Pharma, which in 1996 introduced the slow-release opioid painkiller OxyContin. The new formulation of oxycodone was heavily marketed by Purdue as being less likely to become addictive because, the company said, it didn’t give patients such a jolt of a high.

Experts trace the epidemic to the appearance of Oxy, its heavy marketing, and its migration into the illicit drug trade along with other opioid painkillers.

[How have opioids affected your community? Share your story.]

The public’s search for accountability has centered on Purdue and its owners, the Sackler family. Protesters gathered last year at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, as well as other institutions that received support from Sackler family members. Earlier this year, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow rejected a demand by activists that the university remove Arthur M. Sackler’s name from a museum collection, saying that the Sackler family had made the donation to the school before the introduction of OxyContin and noting that Sackler himself had passed away by that point.

Family and friends who lost loved ones to opioid overdoses leave protests on bottles outside the headquarters of Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Conn., in 2018. (Jessica Hill/AP)

In an earlier statement, Purdue denied the claims brought in the lawsuit and said they are based on mischaracterizations and without merit.

“We live in an age when assigning blame has become a national obsession, especially when it comes to the horrors of the opioid crisis,” Jillian Sackler, president of the Dame Jillian and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler Foundation for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities wrote in an op-ed in The Post in April.

Now Purdue is just one character on a crowded stage. During the height of the crisis, from 2006 to 2012, Purdue’s sales represented only 3 percent of the market. It was not even one of the three biggest companies manufacturing the opioids.

At the top were generic drug companies many Americans have never heard of: Actavis, a product of U.S. mergers, and now owned by Teva; Par Pharmaceutical, since acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals of Ireland; and a generics subsidiary of Mallinckrodt, now known as SpecGx. They manufactured 88 percent of the opioids in those seven years.

Generic drug companies have been on an endless quest for steady profits because the prices of their drugs are unstable and generally declining, said David Amsellem, a managing director at financial firm Piper Jaffray and an expert on specialty pharmaceuticals. He calls these companies “low-market businesses that are looking for pockets of high margins.”

[As lawyers zero in on drug companies, a reckoning may be coming]

That situation has contributed to constant churn in the business. Companies are routinely bought and sold, divisions spun off, names changed. That’s part of the reason the firms responsible for the vast bulk of sales from 2006 through 2012 are virtually unknown to most of the nation. The generic companies don’t promote drugs on television, like the big-brand pharma companies.

“They’re order-takers,” Amsellem said.

The CVS in Norton, Va., population 4,000, received 1.3 million opioids from 2006 through 2012, according to the DEA database. (Charles Mostoller for The Washington Post)

The city’s Walmart received more than 3.5 million of the pills in those same seven years, according to the database. (Charles Mostoller for The Washington Post)

Less obscure are the big distributors: McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. Also mentioned in the ARCOS data are retailers who distributed drugs. They are some of the most familiar names in America, including Walgreens, CVS and Walmart.

In statements to The Post on Tuesday in response to the release of the DEA database, several drug companies issued broad defenses of their actions during the opioid epidemic, saying they were committed to providing a legal product to legitimate pain patients while combating the diversion of drugs.

The drug epidemic is a case of supply and demand, and the newly released data makes clear that supply was never in doubt. The demand side is a more complex public health issue that brings into play the ongoing challenges of communities where the social fabric has been frayed. The new data shows that pills surged most dramatically into central Appalachia, particularly coal country, and bordering areas where the economy has been depressed.

In rural Virginia, 'ground zero' for America's opioid crisis

Norton, Va. was flooded with 306 pain pills per person per year from 2006-2012, according to previously undisclosed data obtained by The Washington Post.

Many people in those areas have endured hardship and job injuries. They need painkillers, including the powerful kind provided by derivatives of the opium poppy. Almost lost in the national controversy over the opioid epidemic is that some people need them badly. In the 1990s, amid extensive drug industry marketing, the medical community seized on a big idea: that freedom from pain was a fundamental human right. As a result, some of the stigma associated with opioid painkillers, which are cousins of street heroin, dissipated.

Within a decade, the pills became their own self-sustaining industry, a black-market and even street-corner product. The painkillers arrived in bulk at small-town pharmacies. That trend is parallel to a rise in the death rates in those communities. Prescription opioid overdoses have claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people in the United States since 1996.

A crackdown on indiscriminate doctors and pharmacists — commonly known as pill mills — as well as tighter prescription guidelines by the medical community have helped drive down the number of overdoses due to prescription drugs. This past week, in a rare drug-statistic bulletin delivering good news, government officials said the overall number of fatal drug overdoses in the country had dropped 5.1 percent from 2017 to 2018, the sharpest decline involving prescription opioids.

But the drug epidemic has hardly abated. Deaths from fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that is being illicitly manufactured abroad and smuggled into the United States, continue to increase. There has also been a rise in deaths from cocaine and methamphetamine.

Just cutting off the supply of one type of drug, or focusing on treating people with addiction and throwing drug dealers in jail, won’t be enough to solve the underlying problem, said Paula Masters, vice president of population health for Ballad Health, which operates hospitals in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Southwest Virginia.

“All you’re doing is squeezing that balloon. If you only squeeze it one way, all you’re going to do is put the air in the other side,” Masters said.

Joseph Mastandrea, chairman of the now-defunct drug distributor Miami-Luken, testifies before Congress in 2018 about opioids. (Alex Brandon/AP)

The accountability question is now being played out in courts across the country. The big event is in Cleveland, where a federal judge is overseeing roughly 2,000 separate lawsuits filed against a rash of drug companies by counties, cities and towns across the country. Opening arguments are supposed to begin this fall in two test cases involving counties in Ohio. Thousands of records remain under seal, but may be released in coming weeks and could include depositions, internal company emails and internal company policies.

The outcome in Cleveland could be a massive, industry-wide settlement along the lines of what happened with the tobacco industry many years ago. But the drug companies have denied wrongdoing. Several executives have testified before a congressional subcommittee under oath that they did not believe their companies contributed to the epidemic.

John Hammergren, then chairman, president and chief executive of McKesson, the nation’s largest drug distributor, testified last year that overprescribing by doctors was the “key driver of the crisis.” He added, “At the same time, there clearly were certain pharmacies in West Virginia that were bad actors that McKesson itself terminated. In hindsight, I would have liked to have seen us move much more quickly to identify the issues with these pharmacies.”

George Barrett, then executive chairman of Cardinal Health, testified: “Pharmaceutical wholesale distributors do not and should not have visibility into the medical judgment or the patients for whom prescriptions are written. However, we can play a role by raising awareness of the dangers of overprescribing, which we are doing.”

The companies have said they remained within established guidelines for opioid distribution. They have argued that state regulators or the DEA should have stepped in if there was a problem.

“The ARCOS data show that distributors have consistently reported sales of opioid-based medications, along with the quantity of the order and the identity of the receiving pharmacy to the DEA. Distributors only recently received access to the full set of data with information about the total shipment of opioid medicines a particular pharmacy received from all distributors,” said Parker, of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance.

The DEA, with limited resources, relied largely on corporate self-regulation.

Some DEA agents and investigators tried to hold the industry accountable, and in 2005 and 2006, as the pill flood was building, they sent letters to drug distributors and manufacturers saying that they needed to comply with federal law and work harder to prevent their pills from being diverted to the black market.

Despite these warnings, diversion continued. The DEA began making cases against some of the biggest drug companies. The industry fought back. Some members of Congress pushed a new, more industry-friendly law, making it harder for the DEA to penalize companies for failing to report suspicious shipments of narcotics.

When companies did face penalties after government investigations, the fines were trivial compared with corporate revenue. The fines were essentially just one cost of doing business.

For example McKesson, the drug distributor, was fined a record $150 million in 2017. Its net income reported that year was $5 billion.

#opioid epidemic

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curtolson · 4 years

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Liberty University needs full leadership change, not just Jerry Falwell Jr.

About the author: Curt W. Olson is a 1991 graduate of Liberty University, with a degree in communications that launched me into journalism. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at LU and the friendships I developed there remain people with whom I have close contact. I do not live in Lynchburg, VA and have no “inside information.” As a journalist, I have been a reporter and served as Religion Editor, copy editor, Editorial Page Editor, and investigative reporter. I spent about 20 years in journalism. More recently, I have been teaching English at a Christian school in Upstate New York. I am married and have two children.

An Open Letter to the Liberty University family by Curt W. Olson of the LU Class of 1991,

Everyone in the Liberty University family should desire a humble leader in Jerry Falwell Jr. after a certain period of time for his “indefinite leave of absence” that was announced August 7. If he continues being the President and Chancellor, he needs our prayers and Galatians 6:1-5 provides the biblical footprint for restoring someone.

Why wasn't restoring Falwell Jr. identified in the news releases from LU? It’s a glaring omission. The AP reported needing “time with family,” not having someone who will work with him to restore him to being a humble leader and past the issues that have surfaced over the past decade. The short statements from the Trustees on August 7 leave far more questions than answers and that is unfortunate. That’s a common chorus with this cast. A lack of clarity and transparency will do that.

It is a separate issue whether Jerry Falwell Jr. could emerge as a different leader and those on campus he has made enemies of would suddenly call him “a new man.” Has Falwell Jr. done way too much damage? This is the question that looms over LU as the new academic year begins.

For many in the LU family, this question has already been asked and answered: There’s too much water that has gone under the proverbial bridge. After all, we now have signs of failure. David French reported in a column on Aug. 9 something is beginning to impact LU’s freshmen applications and transfer students. If you can’t see the obvious correlation, you don’t want to to see it.

Poor judgment

Two events occurred the past three months that created problems. In June, Falwell Jr. said he would wear a face mask only if it looked like the “blackface” that caused problems for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Falwell Jr.’s effort to mock the governor drove a couple football players to transfer from LU and got him in hot water with African-American LU alumni. What did Falwell Jr. think was going to happen? Then on August 3, an Instagram photo emerged, which was deleted, of Jerry Jr. pictured with a female who was not his wife and his pants were unzipped. The “costume party” was a parody of the Trailer Park Boys. Falwell Jr. explained the beverage in his hand was not alcohol. That did not help Falwell when he was on a Lynchburg radio show later in the week explaining what happened and sounding as if he was drunk during the interview. This led to the “indefinite leave of absence.” The deleted Instagram photo and the “blackface” face mask displayed a shocking level of poor judgment for a man leading any Christian ministry, let alone the largest Christian university in the world.

Pleasant image

As an alum from the Class of 1991, I understand the emotions we have for our alma mater. “Liberty is training Young Champions for Christ” and “if it is Christian it should be better” are two of the common statements we heard from LU’s founder, Jerry Falwell. We have this pleasant image of our time there, our friendships we developed, our spiritual growth, and we want a Christian college faithful to biblical teaching and a top-level NCAA sports program. The idea of controversy, chaos, confusion, and lack of certainty is not what we envision for LU.

Harsh reality

It is time, however, to face some harsh facts. Jerry Falwell Jr.’s current leadership is toxic, with a culture of fear and intimidation that has been felt by multiple faculty members, staff, and students. That just begins the list of grievances that have arisen dating back to around 2012. Aside from the bad judgment from the June and August incidents, we also have the following issues that could serve as the catalyst for Jerry Falwell Jr.’s dismissal as President and Chancellor.

They include:

Self-dealing on some real estate transactions;

Self-dealing on some of the construction projects to benefit friends;

Harming the reputation of Liberty University through real estate ventures and other incidents;

Displaying a lack of justice and mercy with many faculty and editors of The Liberty Champion;

Having a faculty member who had a muddied position on homosexuality; and

Neglecting his role in setting the spiritual direction of the campus.

While these would be the key indictments to compel LU Trustees to terminate Falwell Jr., in addition to the outrageous poor judgment that harms the reputation of Liberty University, these may not be a complete list of the issues. These are the known issues through prominent reporting by various entities.

‘Fake news’

I want to address the reporting by POLITICO’s Brandon Ambrosino, Reuters, a column by Will Young in the Washington Post, and others because we live at a time of the common refrain of “fake news.” It puts folks in the position of screaming “fake news,” that while perhaps the information is true, people refuse to accept anything regarded as “bad” to their tribe. Every sentence of reporting by the sources above that resembles the truth opens up a series of brand new questions for Jerry Falwell Jr., and in some cases, the LU Board of Trustees. Perhaps both of those scenarios are long overdue, and the LU family should be demanding answers to those new questions.

Additionally, Ambrosino has admitted to being a homosexual and was one at LU. His sex life has no bearing on his ability to report truth. Anyone who uses that as an excuse to distrust the information he reports has a “see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil” mindset when there’s a five-alarm fire unfolding at Liberty University.

There are many good things happening at LU, but they are happening in spite of Jerry Jr., not because of him.

Real estate deals

Reuters reported in August 2019 on a real estate transaction with a gym owner in Lynchburg, VA

It reported: “In 2016, Falwell signed a real estate deal transferring the sports facility, complete with tennis courts and a fitness center owned by Liberty, to Crosswhite. Under the terms, Crosswhite wasn’t required to put any of his own money down toward the purchase price, a confidential sales contract obtained by Reuters shows.

“Liberty committed nearly $650,000 up front to lease back tennis courts from Crosswhite at the site for nine years. The school also offered Crosswhite financing, at a low 3% interest rate, to cover the rest of the $1.2 million transaction, the contract shows.”

A real mess

Less than two weeks later, Ambrosino wrote a damaging piece in POLITICO that detailed the self-dealing, building contracts going to friends, his autocratic leadership of fear and intimidation, and activities that would only harm the reputation of LU. Those activities include: Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen dealing with racy personal photos, a Falwell appearance at a Miami nightclub, with photos he wanted to keep from becoming public, and the notorious Miami South Beach hostel with a seedy reputation that was owned by Trey Falwell, Jerry Jr.’s son. There are numerous things to be outraged by in Ambrosino’s lengthy report (the full article being the second comment in this FB post). When I read it for the first time a year ago some things surprised and shocked, and other things just confirmed things that I had been hearing. I know people--they will not be named--who work or had worked at LU in various capacities. They grew increasingly alarmed by Jerry Jr.’s autocratic leadership style, which I challenge anyone to make the case is condoned in Scripture. I had read Ambrosino’s previous report on the Miami area hostel, so nothing would shock me about things that Jerry Falwell Jr. did. As an alum, I was more hurt about what his actions were doing to the reputation of LU. Jerry settled a lawsuit in Miami related to that property.

The revelation that bothered me the most from Ambrosino’s September 2019 POLITICO report was the apparent lack of any, or at least sufficient, oversight of major construction on the campus. What follows is an excerpt of Ambtrosino’s reporting:

“At the outset, some in Falwell’s inner circle were not so confident in the arrangement with (Robert) Moon. Before his CMA Inc. (Construction Management Associates Inc.) became Liberty’s go-to contractor, the school bid out its construction work through an office on campus. (‘Free enterprise tends to do pretty well,’ one high-ranking university official said.) The prospect of changing that—giving CMA control over campus construction and its associated costs—rankled some senior university officials.

“Early on in the CMA partnership, before CMA became the university’s single-largest contractor, Charles Spence, the school’s then-vice president of planning and construction, expressed unease about the high costs Moon was quoting for certain school projects. ‘Jerry I am very concerned about cost control on all the projects,’ he wrote to Falwell in a November 2014 email. ‘[Over the last couple of weeks we have had a lot of meetings and conversations on cost and cost overruns. We are just seeing the information begin to trickle in and there really don’t seem to be good answers just a response that the cost we are seeing are fair, and being handled appropriately.’ ‘I hope that I am over reacting,’ Spence continued, ‘but I assure you I am concerned.’

“ ‘I am fine with going back to bidding every project out if CMA can’t run with the big dogs!’ Falwell replied. ‘Let’s hold their feet to the fire!’

“In each of the two years that followed, Liberty paid CMA more than $62 million, part of at least $138 million in contracts from Liberty since the company was formed, according to publicly available tax documents.

“Senior Liberty officials might whisper about the propriety of these business deals, but they told me that Falwell’s decisions on campus are rarely ever challenged by the school’s board of trustees. ‘There’s no accountability,’ a former high-ranking university officer said. ‘Jerry’s got pretty free reign to wheel and deal professionally and personally. The board will approve an annual budget, but beyond that … he doesn’t go to the board to get approval. … It simply doesn’t happen.’ “

Trustees a problem too

You read that right. Jerry Falwell Jr. not only has a family friend as the assigned contractor of capital projects, but few, if any, of them have gone to the LU Board of Trustees for review. The Trustees pass an annual budget and that’s about it. These revelations open up a litany of questions for both Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Trustees on their financial stewardship of Liberty University.

It also creates the issue of whether LU’s leadership needs wholesale change--at President/Chancellor and Board of Trustees. Consider the following for the Trustees: Isn’t it the responsibility of the Board of Trustees to make sure the President is doing the right thing for and by the university? If Trustees were doing their job, this should never have come this far. Since they have now done something, why did they do it now? Are they too embarrassed by repeated Falwell Jr. revelations? What took them so long to come to their collective senses?

In November 2019, Michael Poliakoff of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni chastised LU Trustees in Forbes. He wrote the following: “And Liberty University has serious problems that could benefit from more board oversight. Although Liberty has increased its endowment exponentially under Falwell and has built a massive online degree program, this expansion has come at a cost: According to HowCollegesSpendMoney.com, Liberty spends 86 cents on administration for every dollar it spends on instruction, roughly three times as much as its self-selected peer institutions. Has the board demanded a thorough audit and review?”

Issues stemming from the Trustees are simply added to the overall picture of Liberty University’s leadership. If you can’t see that something’s amiss, you have to be blind.

‘Culture of fear’

Meanwhile in July 2019, former Liberty Champion editor Will Young wrote a lengthy column in the Washington Post titled, “Inside Liberty University’s ‘culture of fear.’ ” Young’s column outlined numerous stories that gained scrutiny upon Jerry Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016. He explained multiple events over a couple of years where the editors were constantly second-guessed and looking over their shoulder of what would offend Falwell’s political sensitivities. After Champion coverage of the Red Letter Christians event in Lynchburg, the student-led, directed, and written newspaper since 1983 had two editors fired from their positions in a complete reorganization of The Liberty Champion. It was a shocking turn of events.

This has always been a tension with The Liberty Champion. In my three years writing or serving in an editorial capacity, two years as the News Editor in 1989-90 and 1990-91, invariably, the faculty adviser, and for us it was Ann Wharton, would use a teachable moment to talk about boundaries that can’t be crossed. But we never, ever had a pattern of being second guessed or looking over our shoulder that Young outlined in his column.

The culture of fear that has developed under Falwell Jr.’s leadership “is a thing” as kids like to say. At some point, folks must draw the conclusion where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Spiritual issues

Lastly, we have a couple of spiritual issues. Karen Swallow Prior was a long-time English professor at Liberty University before recently joining Southeastern Baptist Seminary. I read an interview Prior had with Julie Roys. Prior talks about her affirmation of the biblical definition of marriage. However, she has had some connections with a couple of conferences, including Revoice, that could lead one to draw a different conclusion. The Revoice conference has advocated that same-sex attraction is alright as long as the folks involved remain celibate. All one can do is take Prior at her word, even though that leads to some muddy water. If LU allowed her to remain as a professor for numerous years, one can’t help but wonder how many other professors snuck in under poor vetting that do not hold biblical views on any number of issues. Folks would say the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. The slippery slopes in American culture we were told to not be concerned about, are now issues we are concerned about.

Then, one pairs that with Falwell Jr.’s own tweet where he underscored that his responsibility is not the spiritual direction of the campus. Yet, if one goes to the Leadership page at liberty.edu there are Doctrinal and Mission/Purpose statements that have clear spiritual focus, and a photo of Jerry Falwell Jr. is there with those tabbed links on the left side of the page. So which is it? Does he have any responsibility for spiritual direction of the university, or does he not have that responsibility?

Dr. John Maxwell has said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” With certain aspects of enrollment trending downward, it would appear that some parents are voting with their wallets. How much longer are Trustees willing to go with Falwell Jr.? There’s much at stake in the answer to that question. It’s a question that demands answers and full transparency with the entire Liberty University family.

The best-case scenario is Jerry Falwell Jr. resigns on his own and most, if not all, of the Trustees follow him. It would be the right thing to do. And for heaven’s sake, bring Mark DeMoss back.

#liberty university #jerry falwell jr.#alumni #reuters #politico #forbes

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hmhteen · 7 years

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HMH Teen Teasers: WASTE OF SPACE by Gina Damico

WASTE OF SPACE by Gina Damico is unlike any book you’ve ever read. It involves: an intern whistleblower, a government conspiracy, reality TV, NASA, and the 10 teenagers at the center of it all. Told in epistolary format—that means records, documents, journal entries, phone and video transcripts, and more—the book follows each angle of the story as the reader, and the teenagers, get closer and closer to the truth about what really happened behind the scenes of the viral hit TV show Waste of Space...and why the government tried to cover up the truth.

You can read the first few chapters of WASTE OF SPACE below!

DV8

2375 Wilshire Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 91523

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Charles B. Wang International Children’s Building

699 Prince St.

Alexandria, VA 22314

May 7, 2017

To Who It Might Concern:

As per your request, enclosed are all relevant transcripts of recorded meetings, phone calls, email correspondence, raw video footage, edited-for-broadcast video footage, and confessional interviews used in the production (from development up until the glitch) of the reality television show Waste of Space. We apologize for the admittedly substandard quality of the transcripts; since you insisted on a rushed—some would say unreasonable—deadline, the task to type them up fell to an untrained intern who seems to have inserted personal commentary and conjecture in certain places. A more objective compilation is forthcoming.

We hope these documents will help you guys with your investigation, though we would be remiss if we did not insist yet again that we officially disavow any responsibility for the incident currently under investigation. Waivers were signed. Parents were informed, or so we thought.

This isn’t on us.

Sincerely,

Chazz Young

CEO, DV8 Productions

Author’s Note

Untrained intern here.

Shortly after my boss wrote the above letter, he instructed me to go down to the post office and mail it, along with the thick packet of documents that accompanied it. On the way, I was to ask his personal courier, Boris, to deliver to the office enough recreational drugs to “stop the heart of an elephant,” as the DV8 team was “super stressed.” Then it was suggested that, in honor of the people who were giving our company so much trouble, I stop by an Edible Arrangements store to buy a symbolic bouquet of “fruits with sticks up their asses.”

I did none of those things. The packet was not mailed. Fruit was not purchased, sarcastically or otherwise. I spoke to Boris, but about a different matter altogether. Drugs were acquired—but only for me, and only in the form of caffeine. The decision to become a whistleblower is not an easy one, and faced with the daunting task of tearing into that packet of documents and learning things I could not unlearn, I needed a pot of freshly brewed courage.

The account that follows is my attempt to ascertain what really happened in January and February of the year 2017—not what was reported in the news, not what was claimed afterward in the statements from all parties involved. The evidence I will present is composed of the files found in the aforementioned packet, plus several additional records unearthed over the course of my investigation (some of which were obtained through measures that were not, I admit, strictly legal). All documents are presented in their original states and are labeled with as much information as I could ascertain.

The full body of evidence calls to mind a jigsaw puzzle at a yard sale—some pieces are missing, some are bent out of shape, and some don’t make sense unless one can see the full picture. The truth may be out there, but I doubt anyone will ever be able to irrefutably prove what it is. All I can hope for is that my version is the closest.

Full disclaimer: Because I personally knew and/or met most of the witnesses, and as I was watching and listening from behind the scenes throughout many of the events described herein, it’s inevitable that some of my own judgments and criticisms will leak into this report. But I’ll do my best to keep my perspective to a minimum and to interpret the events in an unbiased manner. To that end, I will refrain from telling this story from my point of view, as it is not meant to be a tell-all. From this point forth I’ll let the evidence speak for itself.

I am not the story here. I, like each of you, was only a helpless witness.

When I accepted an internship at DV8, I knew it wasn’t going to lead to a Pulitzer. The network isn’t what you’d call “prestigious” or “groundbreaking” or “staffed by literate individuals,” but the road to a degree in journalism is fraught with despair, douchebags, and dead ends, and I was aware of and prepared for that. In today’s competitive job market (especially in an allegedly dying profession), I was ecstatic to land any internship at all. I vowed to throw myself into the inane, unending errands. I’d cheerfully fire off meaningless tweets, retweets, and “impactful hashtags.” I’d withstand indignities and humiliations galore, and after all that, I’d be on my way with six full credits and nary a look back at the eight months of hell I’d had to endure, all in the name of my education.

But then came Waste of Space.

And a different type of education presented itself.

—An Intern

July 11, 2017

***

Part I

Preproduction

Development

The year is 2017.

Things aren’t looking good for the future of space exploration. Things aren’t looking good for the state of reality programming, either. It is at this intersection of earnestness and stupidity that the idea for Waste of Space is born.

Naturally, it involves teenagers.

And so it comes to pass that in the midst of a rare Los Angeles thunderstorm, a dozen shadowy figures meet in the small hours of the morning at a secret and nefarious location: the Denny’s off Wilshire Boulevard. They take up two tables, eight urns of coffee, and five carafes of orange juice. The astrophysicists wittily order Moons Over My Hammy. The television executives order nothing.

The following meeting ensues.

Item: Transcript of audio recording

Source: Development meeting

Date: January 2, 2017

[Note: Due to the difficulty in identifying multiple voices, most speakers have been labeled with their organizations rather than as individuals; this format will be employed in several instances throughout this report.]

DV8: You’re okay with us recording this, right?

NASAW: We don’t know what “this” is yet.

Waiter: [off-mike] Who ordered extra hash browns?

[thirty seconds of unintelligible chatter, rustling, sound of plates being placed on table and silverware clanging]

DV8: All right. Now that you’ve got your breakfasts—

NASAW: Aren’t you going to eat?

DV8: We don’t have time to eat.

NASAW: Not even a bagel?

DV8: Especially not a bagel, Paleo doesn’t—forget it. Back to the matter at hand: our proposal. Chazz?

[sound of a throat clearing, then a chair scraping across the floor as Chazz Young, CEO of DV8, stands up to address the group]

Chazz: Ladies and gentlemen of science, I hate to break it to you, but astrophysics isn’t cool anymore. Sure, people embrace technology when it allows them to post photos of epic bacon-wrapped food items, but drag them into a planetarium and you’ll end up with desperate scratch marks on the walls. Funds have been cut, the man on the moon is several decades in the rearview mirror, and the youth of America continue to respond to the vast and impossibly boundless possibilities of outer space with an emphatic yawn.

NASAW: What about Cosmic Crusades? Cosmic Crusades is cool.

Chazz: Science fiction is cool. Science is not.

NASAW: But—

Chazz: Example: two different panels at Comic Con, one with the cast of a space movie franchise and one with genuine astronauts. Which do you think will be better attended?

NASAW: [unintelligible grumbling]

Chazz: Exactly. Likewise, we admit, people have grown bored with the repetitive nature of reality television. They can watch only so many bar fighters, spurned lovers, table flippers, bug eaters, bad singers, and cat hoarders before it all seems like stuff they’ve already seen before. The world is clamoring for something new! Otherwise they’ll have to turn off their devices and go read a book, and we simply can’t have that.

NASAW: Books aren’t bad!

Chazz: Books are the worst.

NASAW: [unintelligible grumbling]

Chazz: So. You need to drum up interest in the space program, and we need more eyes on more screens. Luckily, we’ve come up with a solution that we feel will be mutually beneficial to both of us.

NASAW: And that is?

Chazz: We want to take a bunch of teenagers and shoot them into space.

[choking noises]

Chazz: And put it on television.

NASAW: That’s—er—not possible.

Chazz: Why not?

NASAW: Aside from reasons that should be apparent to anyone with a functioning brain stem, it’s a logistical nightmare. They’d need to undergo months of training and health assessments. You’d need a ship big enough to accommodate a cast, crew, equipment—

Chazz: Oh, we’ll be faking it. The whole thing will be shot on a soundstage. You really think The Real Housewives of Atlantis was filmed at the bottom of the ocean? Please. Those women were so full of silicone they would have floated straight to the surface.

NASAW: But we thought this would be a purely educational endeavor. Didn’t you say you were from PBS?

Chazz: Yes! We lied. We’re from DV8.

NASAW: DV .º.º. 8?

Chazz: It’s a cable television network with several blocks of programming across multiple platforms, including streaming services, our own website, and every social media outlet there is. We’d like to cram all of them full of this.

[sound of coffee urns shakily hitting the rims of coffee mugs]

Chazz: Which is why we need you! Our first choice was obviously NASA, but they not so politely declined. So the low-rent version of NASA it is!

NASAW: I beg your pardon. We are the National Association for the Study of Astronomy and Weightlessness. We are not some piddling little administration—

Chazz: Which is exactly why we’d like you to be consultants. We’ll take care of the casting, the production, everything on that end. You, meanwhile, design a convincing space plane—

NASAW: [overlapping] Spaceship.

Chazz: —you tell us what all the rumbles and beeps and boops are supposed to sound like, and we’ll bring in the best special effects team money can buy.

NASAW: But won’t this seem like one big joke? With all due respect to your special effects, not even the major Hollywood movies can get it a hundred percent right. It’s going to look silly.

Chazz: People believe what they want to believe. Remember America’s Next Top Murderer? Viewers thought that victims were actually being picked off by a serial killer. The network had to start airing a disclaimer before each episode,saying, “No one’s really dying, you morons.”

NASAW: Are you serious?

Chazz: Well, I’m paraphrasing.

NASAW: I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. It just doesn’t seem necessary. We’ve got a bunch of new initiatives in the works—

Chazz: Snore. Yawn. Coma. Let’s be real. Space is passé, and everyone knows it. But you still need a new generation to carry on that galaxy research gobbledygook, or your life’s work will be nothing more than a sham, right? [hearty laughter] So let’s get them excited. Let’s take a bunch of young, gullible, energetic, absurdly good-looking teenagers, stuff them into a space plane—

NASAW: [overlapping] Spaceship.

Chazz: —give them some bullshit training, and tell them they’ll be the first ones ever to set foot on Jupiter!

NASAW: You can’t set foot on Jupiter. Jupiter is a gas giant.

Chazz: You’re a gas giant! [sound of high-fiving] That’s what they’ll say. That’s what the kids will say. Comedy gold like that.

NASAW: But—

Chazz: Point is, this’ll get the youth of America high on space again. Audiences will watch those beautiful idiots floating out there in zero G and want to be just like them. They’ll buy space suits. They’ll buy that astronaut ice cream that tastes and looks and feels like Styrofoam. The merchandising possibilities alone are astronomical. Pun intended! [sound of more high-fives]

NASAW: Now, you listen here. I’ve raised teenagers, and if there’s one thing I can tell you about them, it’s that they do nothing but talk. All day long. On the phone, on the computer, to themselves. How do you expect to get a group of high schoolers in on a secret like this and not blab thirty seconds later about how lame and fake it is?

Chazz: Easy. We tell them it’s real.

[pause]

NASAW: You want to trick a group of kids into thinking that they’re actually being launched into space?

Chazz: Yes.

NASAW: You want them to think that they’re actually being torn away from their friends and family for months, undertaking a dangerous mission from which they actually might not return?

Chazz: Yes. Drama.

NASAW: But isn’t that cruel?

Chazz: “Cruel” is such a subjective word .º.º.

NASAW: Not in this case! The entire proposition is morally questionable! I’m sorry, but we—we can’t sign on to do something like this.

Chazz: Fine. Continue your recruiting efforts in the same way you have been. How’s that going for you?

[silence]

Chazz: Envision with us, for a moment: Plucky kids. Touching backstories. Plaintive piano music. They first set foot in the space plane. Their eyes light up. Our intrepit explorers are—

NASAW: Intrepid.

Chazz: Huh?

NASAW: The word you’re attempting to use is “intrepid.”

Chazz: Pretty sure it’s intrepit. Anyway, the mission commences. Lifelong friendships are formed. Bitter fights erupt. Maybe a slap or two. A slap in zero gravity—that’s never been done before! [sound of a pen scribbling in a notebook] Every eye in America will tune in to check on their new cosmic sweethearts. We’ll edit it down to a half hour each week, plus a live segment tacked on at the end of the show so the cast can wave to their furiously jealous friends in real time. We’ll air it online, too. Live stream, 24/7. Shove it into viewers’ faces until they can’t help but get swept up into it. And before you know it, their impressionable young minds will be putty in your hands. They’ll sign up in droves to join the Cosmic Crusades!

NASAW: That is a fictional movie featuring fictional space heroes.

Chazz: All the more reason to bolster their ranks! Point is, once this show airs, you’ll have an entire generation of walking, talking, floating space zombies begging to be a part of it, ready to do your bidding.

[sound of chairs scraping]

Chazz: We’ll give you some privacy to discuss.

[rustling]

NASAW #1: Has it really come to this?

NASAW #2: The worst part is, they’re right. We’ve tried so hard, reached out as much as we can, but we still haven’t connected with the voice of today’s youth. These .º.º. people, horrible as they are, do have the kids’ attention.

NASAW #3: It pisses me off! Sitting here across from these plastic, vapid nincompoops, having to listen to this claptrap. We’re scientists, for Galileo’s sake! People should be looking to us as golden gods of knowledge, worshiping us for our big brains and thick glasses! Why can’t anyone see that?

NASAW #4: I don’t know. But something has to be done. Something drastic.

�� [commotion]

Chazz: All right, time’s up. What do you say, nerds?

[long pause]

NASAW: [dejected] When do we get started?

Chazz: Casting begins next week!

Casting

Despite the assumed glamour of it all, the logistics of organizing a nationwide audition are tedious, daunting, and involve more screaming fits than one might think. Hundreds of phone calls, emails, contracts, and location deposits go into the organization of the Waste of Space Star Search (pun intended!), and within one breakneck week, all necessary casting and administrative personnel are marshaled and five lucky shopping malls across America are chosen as casting locations.

Thousands of teenagers show up. Each is photographed, given an applicant number, and paraded before a panel of network representatives. Those deemed attractive enough are admitted through to the interview phase, where casting directors interrogate them on the spot.

Not a single interview is recorded. DV8’s casting procedures are unconventional at best and impulsive at worst; this is by design, as will be described in the pages ahead. But this particular lack of content may be for the best. Many applicants are desperate, depressed, lonely, and/or starving for attention, the sorts of kids for whom the opportunity to be shot into space would be an improvement in their lives rather than a calamity. The fact that their audition interviews will never see the light of day will be, for many of the applicants in the years to come, a blessing in disguise.

Besides, the evidence that’s left is, in some ways, far more enlightening.

***

The following is a small compendium of documents featuring the applicants hat are eventually chosen as cast members on Waste of Space. Not all final cast members are represented in this selection, and not all documents are particularly relevant to the troubles that befall the show, but they are provided here to offer a bit of insight into the curious mindsets of those who would endeavor to audition for this particular reality program in the first place.

Item: Email

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: December 18, 2016

Dear Mr. Evans,

You probably don’t remember me, but we met last month at the “Leaders of Tomorrow” luncheon. I’m the one who lost out on the scholarship. No hard feelings, though! For the chair of the MIT Aerospace Engineering program to take note of my academic achievements and flight simulation skills and even go so far as to label me a “future astronaut”—that was reward enough. I am humbled and honored to have met you, and your vote of confidence means more to me than you can ever know.

Thank you again for your consideration. I hope our paths cross again one day—in space!

Item: Transcript of audio recording

Source: Chazz’s cell phone voicemail

Date Recorded: January 12, 2017

Hey Uncle Turd,

It’s me again. I know you think you can keep blowing me off, but guess what? Circumstances have changed. I think you’ll want to pay attention to me this time.

But first, let’s talk about how you declined to cast me last summer in Pantsing with the Stars—an egregious oversight, I think it’s now clear. I wept for the unwatchable drivel that you doomed yourself to produce without my tour de force personality in the mix. I can only assume that your foul, idiotic casting directors were felled by the brain-altering effects of a chlamydia outbreak. How else to explain their insistence on my absence? My appeal is boundless. My charisma is unmatched. My pores are impeccable.

And my middle finger is extended in their direction.

But you’ve got a chance to make it up to me. I heard about your new show. I want in.

And this time, I think you want me in too. Would be a shame if that video of you and Mom were to end up in Dad’s inbox.

Tell me when and where I should show up. Peace OUT.

Item: Post on Cosmic Crusades online forum

Username: LadyBalwayGalway

Posted: January 6, 2017

[excerpt from page 3 of 5]

.º.º. and if you freeze the frame at exactly eighty-three minutes and thirty-seven seconds, you can see that the gamma-ray missile that Fekawa Gooe sets up is NOT in fact aimed at the Intragalactic Senate, in fact it’s cocked at an angle of 52.6 degrees, which would in fact point it directly at Lord Balway Galway, WHO, if you’ll RECALL, stated during the Transnebula Peace Talks that his home planet of Gavinjia was sure to escape the conflict unscathed, so OBVIOUSLY the bombing mission was intended as a wake-up call to prove him wrong and send a TELEKINETIC message that .º.º.

Item: Online video

Username: the_entropy_within

Posted: January 8, 2017

[IMAGE: hands strumming a mandolin while words are spoken over the tuneless chords]

looking up at the sky /

and a thought floats by /

what if the galaxy /

is just a strawberry /

and all the stars we see /

are only flecks of seeds /

that get stuck in your teeth /

and increase carbon emissions /

and line the pockets of corporate America

Item: Social media account

Username: @BacardiParti

[collection of more than 2,000 photos, half of which are unprintable because they are blurry, the other half of which are unprintable because they feature underage nudity]

Informative as these documents are, there are two cast members in particular who warrant closer attention. They will emerge as the most crucial players in this chronicle for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they personally provide a substantial volume of information about what occurs during production—both of them by way of personal video diary entries, also known in reality television parlance as “confessionals.” A small window into their pre-shooting mental states is provided in the following two documents.

(It’s also worth pointing out that both cast members choose to express themselves in the form of dispatches to their parents—symbolically in one case, and literally in the other. This is nothing more than a coincidence, but as their body of work will come to show, the bond between children and their absent parents is a complicated one, to put it mildly.)

The first is a clip from Nico’s personal GoPro video camera. Nico rarely captures himself in the frame of these videos; rather, he uses his words as a soundtrack for the often mundane images he is recording, which are mostly of wherever he happens to be at the time.

Item: Transcript of video recording

Source: Nico’s camera

Battery charge: 100%

Date: January 14, 2017

[IMAGE: Nondescript room. From the angle of the camera, it seems that Nico is seated at a large table at the center.]

Nico: [voiceover] Hi Mom. Hi Dad.

Um.

I did something stupid.

[The camera pans downward under the table, now pointing at his feet. They are rested on a skateboard, which he rolls back and forth.]

I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know how I did it. A lot of systems had to come together to make it happen. My legs had to push me here, my mouth had to say things, my eyes had to make contact with other eyes, my brain had to formulate thoughts, my hamster-size soul had to blow up to ten times its size and pretend to be a lion. And I can honestly say I don’t know how all those things worked in tandem to do what I did.

I auditioned for a reality show.

[pause]

Shit.

Saying it out loud makes me feel like throwing up.

[Nico gets up from the chair. Camera pans to window and holds steady on people walking down the sidewalk—a couple, then a woman pushing a stroller, then two men smoking cigarettes.]

It was like .º.º. like I couldn’t help myself. I’d heard that they were holding auditions at the Queens Center mall, so I told Diego that I was going there to see a movie with some friends—which he didn’t buy, by the way. “What’s wrong with movie theaters in the Bronx? Since when do you have friends in Queens? Why ride the subway for an hour for no reason? Are you out of your mind?”

All fair questions. Especially that last one.

But it was the weekend, and I pointed out that I can do whatever I want with my free time, and he washed his hands of me like he always does, so I went. Just to watch. Just to film the people in line. Figured they’d be an interesting crowd. When I got there, I saw the DV8 banner hanging across the entrance, and I thought, obviously I would never audition, obviously that is something for the otherninety-nine percent of the teenage population to embarrass themselves with, but when I went inside .º.º. I got in line.

Okay, in my defense:

You know how rough I’ve had it.

You know how miserable I’ve been.

(I know you don’t really know. But let’s pretend that you actually watch these videos. That for the past couple of years I have not been pouring the contents of my heart into a digital cache that I’d rather chuck under the B train than let anyone see. Let us pretend that the phrase “pathetic delusion” does not figure into any of this.

Because the thought of college feels like a five-ton block of concrete pressing on my back, and the thought of getting a job instead feels like the floor is rushing up to squish me against the ceiling. Like I’m trapped in a dungeon in a video game, with all these moving contraptions of torture trying to flatten me into a splat of pixels. Like no matter what I do, the future is going to crush me.

I wish you were still here. Diego’s all right, but legal guardian-slash-older brother is not the same as parent. And I don’t know why I thought that this show was the answer, but it was something different, a change, an honest-to-God decision in a haze of fuzzy, unknowable .º.º.)

[Camera pans away from window and focuses on a pair of vending machines in the corner of the room.]

Anyway. Back to the mall.

The line was so long, it wrapped all the way past the escalators and ended near Macy’s. I thought, obviously I’m not going to give them my name, obviously I’m not going to forge Diego’s signature on the waiver, obviously I’m not going to stand in that ridiculous line—

But the line moved fast, and before I could change my mind, my name was called. They brought me into a vacant store where they had set up screens to make little cubicles, like the kind they use in blood drives. There was a cameraman and an interviewer, a woman with a blouse that was cut so low I could see her bra.

(Sorry for that detail, Mom, but I couldn’t not notice. It was staring me in the face, and I’m a healthy adolescent boy.)

(Dad, it was bright turquoise with little rhinestones. You get what I’m saying.)

She asked me all sorts of awful questions, and I answered them. Told her my age, where I’m from, that I’m into skateboarding and shooting videos. To be honest, I don’t remember most of what I said, because it all went by so fast, and she kept nodding, so I kept talking—and also, you know, the bra. All I remember is that her face lit up like Yankee Stadium when I told her you were dead, and after that, it all felt like a done deal. That’s when the dread started, the feeling that this might actually happen. Like I’d stepped into a pool of sticky tar and it wasn’t going to let me go.

I mean that literally. They wouldn’t let me go.

They brought me into this break room, told me to wait, and closed the door.

[Camera pans to door handle. Hand reaches out to jiggle it.]

Locked.

They ducked their heads in about fifteen minutes ago and said that it shouldn’t be much longer, they’ll be reaching a decision soon.

Shit. Shit shit.

I mean, even if I do get cast, it’s not like I have no choice in the matter, right?

Obviously I can say no.

Obviously I’m not going to do it.

The final pre-taping document is another video, this time featuring cast member Titania. She is in a public restroom, aiming her phone camera at the mirror. She looks straight into the lens.

Item: Transcript of video recording

Source: Titania’s cell phone

Date: January 15, 2017

Titania: Remember Trackleton’s Guide to the Big Outdoors?

Cute little picture book that you bought for three ninety-nine at the ranger’s station. The pages were held together with a plastic coil. It had maps of Washington’s hiking regions. And it followed Trackleton, that charming, bearded outdoorsman, as he went on adventures.

His catchphrase was “Keep moving. Keep exploring.” Advice so good it became our family motto.

You read it every time we went camping, which added up to a lot of readings over the years. We used to snuggle into our sleeping bags, and you would read it aloud to us by the lantern light, as little black specks of bugs giving a shadow puppet performance against the walls of our tent.

[Titania’s reflection smiles.]

We loved that book. Patrick liked the colorful maps. Nathan liked to chew on the coil. Lily made up songs to go along with the words—remember how you used to tell her to sing quietly so the rest of us could still hear you read? As if that girl would ever stop singing.

[Her smile fades.]

I’ve been thinking a lot about that book lately. About Trackleton’s cheery optimism and can-do attitude. I hadn’t for years, not since it slipped out of Dad’s pack during the hike through the Columbia River Gorge. But after our last trip—the trip—it all came rushing back to me. I can’t get it out of my head. And I finally realized why.

It had only two rules: Keep moving. Keep exploring. Hard and fast, with no room for error. Don’t overthink them, don’t second-guess them, and everything will work out.

But life isn’t like that at all. Keep moving, and maybe you’ll succeed. Or not. Keep exploring, and maybe you’ll be happy. Or not. Do both, and they could lead to the best possible outcome.

Or do both, and they could ruin everything.

Keep moving, keep exploring.

I’d always thought it was good advice. The best advice.

But I’m not so sure anymore.

The applicants are impressive enough to warrant this response from Chazz Young, the CEO of DV8, delivered via an all-staff conference call.

Item: Transcript of audio recording

Source: Chazz’s cell phoneDate: January 16, 2017

Chazz Young: Hey guys! Chazz here.

So I’d like to bring the entire DV8 family up to speed on our new project. As mentioned at the companywide meeting last week, this project is going to be groundbreaking. It’s going to break, like, every ground that’s been put there since television started.

So over the past week we’ve been holding casting sessions in cities around the country, and—hang on a sec, before I go any further, we all need to give up some mad, mad props to the publicity department. Thanks to your commercials, press releases, and social media efforts, over ten thousand kids came out to audition! That’s a lot of hormones to shoot into orbit!

So as usual, we’re implementing the classic smash-and-grab casting technique our network has become famous for. Any of you out there who are new to the DV8 family, allow me to elaborate on our patented selection process. Back when we were a tiny fledgling network that didn’t know any better, we dragged out the audition process for weeks. We left no stones unturned, no cell phones untapped. We were thoroughly exhaustive in our attempts to pinpoint what potential castmates might do to one another.

But let us recall the season four finale of Alaskan Sex Igloo. We had thought, based on Saffron’s tendency to fly off the handle and start stabbing things, that she would break one of the icicles off the ceiling and use it to stab Khaleesi. We spent all season leading up to it, right? With foreboding music? And tasteful close-ups of the icicles? And Saffron’s confessional, where she talked about “getting her stab on”? It’s why we cast her. But for all of our efforts, look what happened—she and Khaleesi hugged and cried and shared a snow cone. With Jared. Jared was the one who was supposed to be so lonely and ignored that he left the safety of the igloo to seek the loving embrace of a grizzly bear!

But the bears never came. And no one got stabbed.

From that point forward, we decided to take a more hands-off approach. Now, rather than have the whittled-down pool of applicants come in for a final round of casting, we simply go with our gut reactions and finalize the cast based on their original, uncut interviews. In fact, we whisk them directly out of the auditions as soon as their parents or guardians sign the waiver! (Reminder to all employees: any questions from the press that contain the word “kidnapping” should be forwarded straight to the PR department.) And so we are proud to announce that we have already chosen the final ten cast members—only one week after auditions!

We’ve still applied the standard network reality casting percentages: fifty percent male, fifty percent female; sixty percent white, thirty percent ethnic, ten percent undetermined; balanced dispersal of ages from fourteen to eighteen; plus the four Golden Tokens: gay, foreigner, disabled, and orphan. And as per usual, we’ll be throwing all sorts of plot bombs and crazy situations at the poor bastards—with the new added twist of a live segment at the end of each episode.

Of course, we’ll still leave some things up to chance. Fifteen percent of the editing will be done on the fly, based solely on the relationships and developments that we’ll be monitoring closely over the course of each week. Who knows how it’ll unfold? Who knows where it’ll lead? Who knows what those hyperactive, questionably sane caricatures will throw at us?

I do: Drama.

A brief word about Chazz Young, CEO of DV8, walking innuendo, and overall trash barge of a human being.

The word that pops up most often when people attempt to describe Chazz is “exceedingly.” He is exceedingly tanned. His teeth are exceedingly white. He is exceedingly self-centered, as evidenced by his initiative to move the human resources department to the basement of DV8 headquarters so his twin puggles could have their own corner office. He is exceedingly arrogant, treating everyone involved in his television productions—cast members, crew, staff, and, yes, interns—as insignificant specks who exist solely to make his star shine more brightly. And he is exceedingly cocky, given the fact that he unilaterally declared himself to be the best candidate for on-air talent. Plenty of talented hosts have presented themselves to DV8 over the years, and although a lucky few manage to grab a sliver of airtime now and then, it’s Chazz’s vinyl face that you’re most likely to see whenever you tune in. Especially when it comes to something as high-profile as Waste of Space.

Which calls to mind another of Chazz’s qualities: he is exceedingly lazy. He thought that Waste of Space was going to be a home run no matter what, and that all he had to do was plug in the numbers to a tried-and-true formula that hadn’t failed him yet. But when someone as oblivious as Chazz Young stops seeing people as human beings, he might also stop noticing other details. Smaller details.

Important details.

Item: Transcript of audio recording

Source: Chazz’s cell phone

Date: January 9, 2017

Chazz: You nerds there? Ready to get this conference call party started?

NASAW: We’re here.

Chazz: Great. So let’s—[doorbell rings in background] oh, hang on a sec, everyone. Rock climbing wall delivery.

NASAW: You have your own rock climbing wall?

Chazz: Two rock climbing walls. LA’s an earthquake town, it’s important to always have a backup—listen, just talk amongst yourselves for a few minutes. I'll be right back.

[beat]

NASAW #1: I can’t believe we agreed to this. [sound of papers sifting] These people are certifiable.

NASAW #2: And irresponsible.

NASAW #3: Don’t forget soulless.

NASAW #4: [sighing] Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We signed the papers. We’re in this whether we like it or not.

NASAW #2: But look at these emails! They are hurling money at this thing. We’ve been trying to get this sort of funding from the government for years and received nothing—because apparently the money’s all wrapped up in television! I called to double-check the budget because I figured it couldn’t possibly be correct, but it is. The girl on the phone offered to throw in an extra million just because I asked how her day was going!

NASAW #4: How do they have so much money? They’re a television network!

NASAW #2: Two words: Chazz Young. I did some research on this guy. Got rich off his daddy’s trust fund, then used it to buy a struggling sports channel. He did an extensive overhaul, switched all its programming to trashy reality television, bumped up its online presence, and installed his own in-house production company to develop his own projects.

NASAW #4: What does that mean?

NASAW #2: It means that whenever a ridiculous idea pops into Chazz Young’s mind, he has the unlimited budget and power to make it into a show, air it on television, and spread it all over the internet, just like that.

NASAW #3: Let me see those figures. [sound of coffee being spit across the table] Jesus Christ! We could buy a brand-new shuttle for that kind of money! Plus fuel!

NASAW #4: I say we round up the lot of these dolts and send them into space.

NASAW #2: And I quote: “We will spare no expense on the visuals. None whatsoever.” They’re teaming up with a company called ImmerseFX—it makes video games or virtual reality or theme park rides, I don’t know what the heck it is—to handle the special effects. Which we’re supposed to keep quiet about, by the way, since they’re trying to pass this thing off as real.

NASAW #4: Psfff. Good luck.

NASAW #2: They’ve reserved the largest soundstage in the New Mexico desert, and they’re handing it over to us, keys and all. “Build a space plane inside!” they said. “Bounce it up and down! Make as much noise as you want!” The effects people will be out here for a few days to build the thing based on our designs—then after that, it’s up to us. All for the purpose of torturing these poor kids with ridiculous pre-written plot points—

NASAW #3: Pre-written? I thought this was a reality show.

NASAW #2: Ha! Reality, my ass. The only thing that’s real is the team of video editors they’ve got on call, ready to craft it into whatever they need it to be while we get to sit around with our thumbs up our posteriors, shaking a tin can with of a bunch of spoiled little fame whores sealed inside.

NASAW #4: But there’s a host onboard with them, right? Some form of adult supervision?

NASAW #2: Nope! [slightly hysterical laughter] The network people aren’t even going to be on set! They said they’d, quote, “rather be shot into the sun than spend three months in that shithole of a desert,” so they’ll be monitoring everything via live feeds, safe and cool in their air-conditioned offices in Los Angeles, and sending us their instructions. Instructions that, I might add, would be hilarious if they weren’t so blisteringly idiotic.

NASAW #4: [papers sifting] “Week number one: Asteroid Attack. Will require impacts against the walls of the space plane. Week number two: Spinning Out of Control. Will require a rotating video animation to be displayed in the space plane’s window.”

NASAW #2: And there’ll be more where that came from! The cameras onboard the ship will record six hours at a time, upload the video files to the main server we’ll have on-site, then automatically wipe the memory cards and begin recording again. It’s a process that can sustain itself indefinitely without any manual upkeep, which frees up even more time for them to dream up even more foolishness. And then there’s the list—the twenty-three-point list!—of consultants who are only a phone call away should we wish to contact them. Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar, a charter helicopter company, the Jim Henson workshop—

NASAW #3: Are you kidding me? Puppets? Do they want aliens?

NASAW #2: They might! They might want aliens!

NASAW #1: Enough. [sound of a coffee mug pounding the table] There is a clear path through all this.

NASAW #2: Yeah, right through to the unemployment office. Better get in line.

NASAW #1: You’re looking at this from the wrong angle. What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is an opportunity. A golden opportunity.

[pause]

NASAW #2: What are you proposing?

[sound of coffee being poured]

NASAW #1: We make their spaceship.

[sip]

NASAW #1: We make their show.

[sip]

NASAW #1: And then we make history.

***

WASTE OF SPACE is available on 7/11, but if you liked this teaser, pre-order it today by clicking the links below!

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