#aiden james

[orchidscript]

Because I am nothing if not a total, unrepentant slut for writing compliments (sue me, aren’t we all?), I’m posting a little teaser trailing for A Delicate Balance, an upcoming full-length novel I’m hoping to have available soon. It’ll either be available as a free download on Gumroad or for a small price elsewhere -- nothing is set in stone yet, but do stay tuned!

This is an excerpt from the first chapter, where Carter’s sister-in-law gives him an unexpected brush with his soon-to-be co-star, Aiden James. 

All text is under the cut. Constructive criticism and feedback is encouraged and appreciated <3

Orchid

Carter glared down at the magazine in front of him. Entertainment Weekly had never been his cup of tea, and it’s spread of current articles wasn’t doing anything to change his mind now. As a rule, he did his best to ignore and avoid the rumor mill – gossip rags, eyes-on-the-street websites, tabloid-adjacent Twitter accounts, conspicuously posted photographs on Instagram. Carter didn’t like what it did to his head, what it said about him without knowing him. It had taken some time, but he was finally comforted in the knowledge that if something concerning surface, someone else would tell him. He didn’t have to go looking for it.

So, when his sister-in-law, shoved the magazine into his hands during the weekly family room coffee klatsch, Carter had taken it to skim, to humor her, and hand it back. Whatever it was, it likely wasn’t any more important than the callback audition scene he was trying to keep in his brain. Definitely not as important his cup of milky-sweet coffee and keeping his nose out of any potential co-star’s business.

Annoyance prickled in his throat the moment he’d finished the lead graf. His resolve and good sense had been unceremoniously chucked out the window. His coffee was stone cold. His printed short script – brought to humor himself when everyone had settled into silence on the back deck – lay abandoned on the coffee table underneath the magazine.

“Your face’ll freeze that way,” Tabitha hummed over her latte.

“Sure,” Carter said, flat and toothless.

“All your hot boy roles will dry up.”

“Good. Can’t wait.”

“They’ll start casting you as the grumpiest old man in all the grumpy old man movies.”

Carter grumbled. “Then why did you give this to me, Tab? I’ve got auditions coming up, I don’t need the psych-out.”

Tabitha shrugged in a way that raised flags in Carter’s brain, but still caught and held his attention. His sister-in-law never did anything without a reason, an ulterior motive, something substantial behind the action. She glanced past his shoulders to where the kids were playing. “I saw it getting passed around the office and I thought you might care to know.”

“Why would I care about what the James golden boy is up to?” Carter rolled his eyes and watched Tabitha’s expression closely. He crossed his arms over his chest, making a point to avoid the neglected magazine pages on the coffee table. “He’s so squeaky clean, he’s about as interesting as day-old wallpaper paste.”

From the slick, newly purchased pages, Aiden James stared up and out at them. Young, intense, blue eyes and dark hair marking him as the spitting image of his mother; the fresh-faced American darling of London’s West End. A little sweaty in the shots too, all taken from a revival of A Lion in Winter that English theater goers were currently losing their collective gourd over. The article’s author had taken their sweet time to make note of it – supposedly a triumph, and fantastically refreshing, and a jaw-dropping in-tune modern reinterpretation of the Plantagenet succession. 

Carter didn’t care about Aiden James or whatever success he was garnering at center stage, how much time he spent being bland at the stage door. Carter could easily spit something snarky but true about celebrity nepotism babies and the over-inflated talents of just okay straight, white, male actors who could only play themselves, but called it method. But he wouldn’t. It was too easy, and too unfounded. He’d rather not make a complete ass of himself.

Aiden James, despite being American, worked exclusively in London, on stage in plays as brooding aristocrats or war-beaten princes. Carter was happiest in front of film cameras, even if never watched his own pictures. They would never cross paths. If they ever did, it wouldn’t matter much. 

Carter Radcliffe was carving out a name for himself, in spite of himself.

The Jameses were working up their fourth generation of Hollywood dynasty and weren’t worth worrying about. 

Simple as that.

“Rumor has it, he’s looking to diversify his career,” Tabitha began slowly, even paced like she was waiting for Carter to pick up on something blatantly obvious. 

Even if it was, Carter waited. It was a sunny Saturday and his brain was too cluttered to take guesses. He’d rather she spell the whole thing out like he was one of her toddlers. 

It took a minute, but she soon took another slow sip and relented. “Someone I work with is working on an article about upcoming flicks, and she’s got a solid source saying James is looking to take after mommy and get into movies. He’s courting some A-lister directors, been doing video auditions, and it sounds like they’re pretty damn impressed. Some big deal projects are looking to make deals with him.”

Carter raised his eyebrows at her. “Tab, if I believe every single unnamed source in this town--.”

“It’s a casting director with Spyglass.”

“What?”

Tabitha sighed, shooting him a look meant to remind him of the journalistic ethics she was bound to in spite of the subject matter she wrote about. “Their source is the casting director for Foxes in Snow. They had some things to say about Lèse-Majesté too.”

Carter blinked. He picked at the skin of his thumb to hide the sudden worry catching him in the back of the throat. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. Off the record, they said James has read for both leads and that the studios are falling all over themselves to give him an offer.” Tabitha picked up the magazine from the coffee table, pulling it back to her chair and placing it out of Carter’s reach. He was grateful for the distance, grateful she looked vaguely apologetic. “Mari had you read for those didn’t she?”

“A month ago, yeah.” Carter swallowed tightly, heart sinking. “They said they’d be in touch.”

“That’s not an offer.”

“Yeah I fucking know it’s not,” he snapped at her, immediately regretting it. 

[orchidscript]

I'm sure you weren’t really wondering what this was for last week.

I'm going to tell you anyway:

Jostled by a badly performing movie and stuck in the grinding cycle of Rom-Com hell, Carter Radcliffe's acting career is in a rut. Type cast for years as the handsome leading man, auditions for Oscar-worthy roles are drying up. When the opportunity he’s been waiting for finally shows up, the role goes instead to Aiden James, the American darling of London’s West End looking to make a Hollywood splash. Trapped in a swirl of one-sided animosity, Carter is cast opposite Aiden as a destined-to-fail gay couple in a period drama. As they work together and Carter gives up his grudge, they come to any understanding, then something like friendship. Will Aiden and Carter’s on-screen relationship make them award winners, or something more?

A Delicate Balance will be available as an eBook through Gumroad and Amazon in September 2023.

Let me know if you have any questions!

[orchidscript]

I have goals to finish the whole second book of Henry’s story by, approximately, November. It’ll be available on Gumroad when the time comes, but so far I’ve got 50-ish chapters to write and only about 20 written. So, for another time. BUT I still want to post bits and pieces periodically. So, for today: the boys taking a moment as Aiden does a lot of thinking. Enjoy!

warnings | angst, memory loss, memory recovery, weird times in CT.

~*~*~

It was too cold for boats and docks and shore-side towns. The season had long since wound up, wrapped up, and closed down for the year. Only a scant few restaurants were open and, every time they darkened the door of one, it was clear they were the only non-locals around. 

Not that anyone seemed to mind once Carter flashed them a smile, mentioned the two of them staying at his grandmother’s old cottage up the way for the weekend to clear their heads. Someone had asked Carter if he worked on a fishing boat. Carter had just laughed and answered with a good-natured something like that.

Less Manchester by the Sea and more Charles Darwin, fortunately for me.

Whatever that meant, Aiden couldn’t help thinking.

Late November and the leaf-peeping tourism had dried up just as surely as the summer lobster roll tourism. But here they were, sitting on plastic chairs in a warm dock house, eating things good and hot, and staring at the expanse of gray North Atlantic water just outside the windows.

Aiden’s view fogs whenever he lifts his still-steaming mug to his mouth. The tea is strong, over-brewed, and intensely sweet. Carter had watched him as he dumped two whole packets of honey into it, fascination quirking his eyebrows and turning the corner of his mouth up. 

Apparently, Henry had a similarly reckless sweet tooth. He left rubber-banded bags of chocolate chunks in drawers around their house; was known to shove a palm-full into his mouth when he was bored, stressed, studying, reading, or too focused on the television to bother getting up for dessert.

Aiden smiled at the image, then added chocolate chips to his mental list of snacks.

The more Carter talked about Henry, the more Aiden liked him. 

The more he seemed like an extension of himself, a named part of himself, rather than someone he was supposed to embody, become, pretend to be. 

The longer Aiden sat with Henry Aiden Fitzgerald — twenty-five years old and four years sober the previous May; an obsessive reader, stress-eater, and chemistry nerd — the better he could feel himself filling out. The longer Carter talked about Henry in the third person, the more Aiden could see all of Henry’s edges just inside of his. Could better pull at the tender threads that connected them, slowly slowly drawing them closer together.

Aiden Iain James liked Henry Aiden Fitzgerald.

He liked that Henry had kept a part of his name before he knew it was his. He liked how Henry cut his hair and ran laps in the mornings. He liked Henry’s clothes and shoes, the precision neatness of his desk, his taste in books and book shops. He liked Henry’s worn-soft wool winter coat. It was a little tight in the shoulders but it did the trick. Carter said he’d had it since he was sixteen and couldn’t bear to part with it. Henry loved it enough to track down a tailor and have them stitch in new panels to fit his older body. Aiden could smell the remnants of Henry’s cologne on the collar.

Aiden liked reading Henry’s journals and diaries. He had paged through all fifteen of them since Carter had dropped off the collection. He liked the hesitation in the early pages — a therapy assignment frustrated by withdrawal and brain fog — that gave way first to brittle clarity, then disbelieving comfort, then brutal honesty and hesitant kindness.

Fifteen fully filled journals in five years.

Aiden couldn’t help but think it might be a record somewhere.

Carter had told him that Henry had taught himself how to write again. That he stayed up nights reading the most difficult books he could find to bolster his reading. Told him that Henry had struggled with every textbook he had ever opened and secretly recorded every lecture on his cell phone. That he rewrote all of his notes by hand in that now-familiar painstaking even printing; all to make the ridiculous formulas, vocabulary, and copied down diagrams easier to read later.

Carter said Henry was the bravest person he had ever known. He’d gotten himself away from Aldersky and Caldwell not once, but twice. He’d gotten a journalist to publish a carefully edited version of his story, knowing he could win a court case so long as everyone believed he had been adopted. That seeing the other boy in the same suit and tie on the nightly news, jaw stiff and blue eyes firm, made Carter love him for the first time. Carter said he’d cried when he saw Henry back in class several months later; that Henry had cried too. They’d skipped class to celebrate. Their first real date.

Between the escapes Henry wrote about, the court transcripts he had read, the pages of crisply penned self-flagellation, and the velvet bracelet box of sobriety chips, Aiden couldn’t help but agree.

Henry was brave. Henry was impressive. Henry was self-made in the most literal sense of the sentiment.

Henry was the reason Aiden was sitting in a locals-only restaurant on the Mystic side in the middle of a snow storm. Henry was the reason Aiden was holding Carter’s hand across the table as he drank tea and picked at french fries.

Aiden was Henry, even if he couldn’t remember him.

Suddenly, that knowledge wasn’t a weight anymore. It wasn’t daunting or infuriating. It didn’t make Aiden want to scream in the shower or pull out his hair. It didn’t make him sad, not like it once had. Henry was proof Aiden could be a stubborn son of a bitch.

Aiden liked knowing he had it in him. He liked knowing Henry had put it there.

He liked feeling the smooth ivory of the curled rabbit netsuke in his coat pocket and knowing the vicious persistence that made it his. Just as much as it was Henry’s.

~*~*~

Let me know if you’d like added or removed from the tag list, thank you!

tags | @neuro-whump @burtlederp @hackles-up @deluxewhump​ @justanothermaltesegirl @whumptywhumpdump​ @whumphours​ @whump-only​ @thatsthewhump​ @boxboysandotherwhump​ @pebbledriscoll​ @kixngiggles​ @rosesareviolentlyread​ @keeper-of-all-the-random-things​ 

[orchidscript]

He needed a nap. - sentence starter, for anyone

So the question remains — do I do more Aiden? Or Henry? Or Nicholas? Hmmm.... I don’t know. Let’s see what happens!

(Forgive me, I’ve had bourbon.)

Cw: training, conditioning, manipulation of a minor. Facility 004, Rhys Snow, BBU warning.

He needed a nap. Really badly. But he wasn’t going to sign that stupid piece of paper. Never ever ever. He knew what they were going to make him and he wasn’t going to become one. The “pre-mades” worked for wealthy assholes up on Central Park West or out in the Hamptons, and he wasn’t about to agree to doing some rich lady’s laundry for the rest of his natural born life.

No fucking way.

They’d kept him awake for three days, Aiden thought as he laid on the cot in the white room. But joke’s on them. He and Sten had dared each other to pull all-nighters that one time last year, and Aiden had won.

Aiden smiled to himself. Dad was so pissed at him for that. Mom just kept him home from school and made him sleep.

He sniffed, suddenly hit by a bolt of sadness. His mom could fix this. She could fix anything.

But she didn’t know where he was. No one did.

The door opened and Aiden didn’t move. He knew who it was without having to look — that jackass in the crisp uniform who thought he was hot shit because he had shiny boots or whatever. Rhys Snow, pronounced like that one actress.

Aiden giggled to himself.

“What’s so funny, James?” Rhys Snow crouched down next to the cot, his eyes flickering dangerously.

Aiden flopped onto his back, laughing harder. “Your name sounds like Reese’s Cups. Reese’s piecees.”

He dissolved into laughter, the handler glaring daggers at him. He grabbed the laughing boy by the jaw and squeezed. “Watch yourself, James. We specialize here and we aren’t patient. We get what we want and someday, I’ll be so far up your ass you won’t know what hit you. Got that?”

Aiden just laughed harder. He needed a nap, and now peanut butter.

[orchidscript]

Maybe "My name is 325079." for the sentence starters. Just some nice Aiden whump ;)

Some very nice Aiden whump, anon :) Thank you so much!

cw: training and conditioning. Handler Rhys Snow might get his own warning. Mariana Aldersky.

~*~*~*~

“My name is 325079...”

“Good. Again.”

“My name is 325079.”

“Good. And what else?”

The trainee lets out a breath, quiet and numbed. “My name is 325079 and I signed up for this. I’m a toy.”

“Yes you are. And what do you want, Seventy-nine?”

“I. I want to be touched... The, the. The owner’s touch is good, and I w-want it. I want to be touched, I want to be helpful.”

Rhys Snow crouches down in front of the boy in the chair and grinned. The wipe is still fresh, there’s still a chance he remembers some things, but there would be time enough to reinforce it. If he said so himself, he was doing a beautiful job on this one. He was a pretty one -- a fighter, but worth it to see the listless, sweet look in his blue eyes. The gentle tilt of his head that sent his dark hair falling lightly over his forehead.

“Very good, Seventy-nine,” Rhys praised, patting the teenager on the knee. He straightens and comes to stand behind the chair, resting his hand on the trainee’s shoulders. “So, what do you think, Mrs. Caldwell?”

The woman -- the paying customer, Rhys reminded himself -- fixed him with a cold look. “Miss Aldersky, handler.”

“Right, my apologies.”

She pursed her lips and pointed to the boy. “May I?”

Rhys immediately moved away. “Of course. He’ll be yours eventually.”

The woman hums and comes up to 325079. She runs a hand over his jaw and temple, twisting his head one way to another. She walked a circle around him, inspecting every inch of him as if he were a prize-winning dog. Rhys did his best to get a read off her, but he couldn’t. Ms. Aldersky was a locked-shut book at the bottom of well. 

“Well? What do you think?”

“He’ll do.” She turned, reaching into a coat pocket. She pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it out for Rhys to take. “This is from the governor. Please see that he is well versed in every one of those. They are very... specific.”

As Rhys opened his mouth to answer, 325079 murmured, “I’ll be good for you, ma’am. Promise. I’m very good.”

Ms. Aldersky turned back, smiling hollowly at 325079. She tilted his chin back up on the tips of her fingers. She smoothed her hand over his hair. “Yes, you will, darling. You’ll be perfect. I expect nothing else, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Handler Snow,” she looked back over her shoulder at him, a certain cool fondness in her face. “You’re doing an excellent job. He’ll do wonderfully.”

[orchidscript]

Do the parents ever find out what really happened to Henry? He was the pet of the governor so they might find out. (If they did find out what would they do?)

They never do, anon. Henry doesn’t tell and, even if they did find out, I imagine Poppy would understand that if he hadn’t brought it up before, bringing it up now would be counter-productive. Mark might ask Kieran, who can’t give any more information than they could find out on the internet.

[orchidscript]

why did Henry's parents sell him?

So, I’m going to lay out the whole answer to Henry’s background here, because it’s lore that exists in my head but it’s not something Henry will ever know or find out. So, brace.

cw: warning for abduction of a minor

Henry’s parents didn’t sell him. In fact, they to this day have no idea where their 15 year old son disappeared to. Henry — then Aiden James — disappeared while hanging out with friends on a Sunday afternoon. He has not been seen or heard from since, and the only person who really puts all the pieces together is Kieran Cochran (Caleb’s brother-in-law).

On the WRU side: picking up Aiden James was a total mistake, an accident the people at Facility 004 were not willing to make right. He looked quite a bit like a pet lib influencer and they grabbed the wrong kid. Instead, they decided to hold him, knowing a buyer would come along. Enter Alexander Caldwell and his gross preferences.

Henry, honey, I’m sorry.

Kinda feel like I just laid out all my cards on the table, but c’est la vie.

[honestlyyidk]

i ate this book UP, it was so yummy i love unhinged men in books who are utterly obsessed with their woman. also jealous territorial men make my knees weak.