Henry Golding, cis male, he/him Ā Ā ā Ā Ā ļ½¢ Whenever I see Theodore Reynolds III meandering down Agnes Street Basket Case by Green Day starts to play inside my head. Maybe it is the vibe they give off. Crisp suits, dom pĆ©rignon, day planners; Ā you know? Pure Tranquility is what keeps them interested in Agnes. I heard they are a thirty-four year old owner at Reynolds Tech. They look like the kind of person who takes an hour to get ready every morning.Ā ļ½£ Ā ā Ā Rosie, 22, GMT
[ CW; substance abuse, discussions of ODs, homophobia ]
Reynolds Tech began its life long before the arrival of the internet. Charles Reynolds founded their first factory as a manufacturing firm, and adapted with the times. Charles Reynolds Jr. followed in his footsteps and then some, branching out as the age of computers truly hit its stride. By the time his son, Theodore C. Reynolds I took over their production had moved on to more modern technology and expanded; Reynolds Tech was no longer limited to its homeland of San Fransisco. The next generation sired Theodore C. Reynolds II, who had an unimaginable fortune dumped into his lap from his birth, and none of the common sense to properly wield the silver spoon life had given him. Theodore C. Reynolds III was born into the disarray of his fatherās nonsensical business ventures, and the responsibility to pick up the pieces.
Mrs Reynolds, Theodoreās mother, was half the age of his father, but twice as much of a party animal. They would have crowds of their associates over all the time, drinks would flow and the music would blast from the speakers, and he would wait it all out in the poolhouse, wrapped in a blanket with his homework until he fell asleep. In the mornings he would head inside with the housekeeping staff and start piecing things back together with them, sidestepping his mother passed out on the pool table, and his father sprawled out like a starfish in one of the guest rooms, with some other woman fighting for the last sliver of space.
The first time the family went bankrupt, Theodore was eight. He could sense that something wasnāt quite right for a while despite not really being clued in; his mother and father started fighting over credit cards and shopping sprees, and their staff would sequester themselves away in quiet corners under the impression that nobody was listening, discussing their plans for when the family lost the house. When Theodore, in tears, finally asked his mother if they were going to be homeless, she swept him up in his arms and wiped his tears away. She told him a long and winding bedtime story of exactly how they were going to run away together, how they would find a little cottage in the country and take care of themselves, how theyād wake each morning with the crow of a rooster and drift of at night to the hooting of an owl. At the time, he was too young to understand the dilation of her pupils, and the way her leg bounced over the edge of the bed, but not too young to notice it. Even with her comfort, that sense that something was wrong lingered on as her warmth soothed him to sleep.
When the press caught wind of the downfall of Reynoldsā Tech, all hell broke loose. Paparazzi would gather at the gate of their driveway, some would even camp out, and they would follow the car taking him to school until it reached the end of the street. Right when it seemed like the pressure would finally make his father call it quits, he elongated his denial by launching Reynolds Tech into the mobile phone industry. Once again the business was booming, and his parents were perfectly content to start pissing away their cash again.
Their financial status, and the repute of Reynolds Tech rose and crashed like a wave as Theodore grew up. He never quite knew what would happen next, and most of his questions were met with a hearty guffaw from his father, and the accusation that he was a nerd.
That became a pattern. Whenever Theodore and his father butted heads, he would find himself at the butt of a joke. His parents would pick him apart and laugh all the while, and the second he snapped back heād be labelled a crybaby; his mother would pinch his cheek and coo over her sensitive little boy, and that would be the end of that.
By the time he turned ten, hiding away at parties was no longer an option. It wasnāt cute anymore - especially not when his parents werenāt the hosts. It seemed his father had relied on the help of some new friends to get himself out of his many financial pitfalls, and one way or another he had helped them in turn - and all of that meant he had to make appearances along with the rest of his family. He wasnāt the only kid there, but that didnāt help much; he didnāt get along with them very well. He was prickly. He didnāt want to dance, or play, he just wanted to be alone which gradually became less and less possible. For some reason, every time theyād go, the same name would pop up on the way there. - Joselyn Hawthorne this, Joselyn Hawthorne that. He should be friends with her, he should dance with her, she was pretty, wasnāt she? Theodore couldnāt say heād noticed.
He started noticing things before, and at these parties. Every now and then heād walk past the bathroom to spot his mother taking a pill, or wiping something into her gums, and she would hurry over to explain it. It was just her medication; it was normal, and healthy, and it just helped her get through the day. When he had to carry her up to her room from the car once they got home, he had to question the legitimacy of that, but she would slur something about side-effects, and how grateful she was for her strong, darling boy. She said the same thing when he visited her in the hospital after the first overdose heād been there for, but he didnāt feel like such a strong, darling boy after watching her get her stomach pumped.
Theodore was never the rough and ready type. He would get involved in sports, sure, but football was his worst nightmare. Any team sport that left him crowded, surrounded by other boys ready and willing to crush him in their path was a nightmare - but anything that kept him at a distance was fine. Tennis was a particular favourite of his, much to his fatherās amusement. He liked to swim too, mostly because of the quiet that came with being underwater.
When he reached high school, his father started to prod him a little more. Why wasnāt he on the football team already? He couldnāt just sit around, āreading those queer little books all day,ā or āstick to the gayest sports just to embarrass him.ā In his freshman year, he started to notice that word a lot - at home, in the halls, during class - and what a negative thing it had to be. The word was eventually burned into his psyche after a particularly tough tennis match. Heād one by the refereeās ruling, and his opponent hadnāt taken kindly to it. Once they reached the locker room he found himself pinned up against the wall with the other boyās forearm crushing his throat, firing that word at him over and over. It affected him in more ways than one, but what it taught him most of all was that, at whatever cost, that damned word better not apply to him.
In his junior year, Theodore found himself curiously led to the principalās office, only to be told that, by some āmiracleā heād made it on to the varsity football teamās starting lineā¦ Despite never trying out, or willfully tossing a football at all. He wasnāt an idiot, and he knew within seconds that his father had bought the spot for him, and he stormed home with a bone to pick. He insisted that he was going to quit, but his father reminded him of two things. Firstly, he was doing his son a favour! Everybody probably thought he was gay since heād never even tried out. And secondly, heād lost his entire college fund on a bet the week before, and he wasnāt going to replace it unless Theodore at least tried to win a football scholarship instead. Never mind the boys on his team that might actually need one, or his lack of interest, or the fact that everybody on the team could tell exactly what was going on. He played one match, broke his wrist, and got stuck with the silent treatment from his dad for two weeks.
Still, college eventually came, and his father begrudgingly coughed up for his acceptance at Harvard. He liked to think he earned the spot - his grades were immaculate and he had a healthy amount of extracurriculars under his belt - but he could only wonder how much of that had been paid for, too. He worked hard, secured his major in business and his minor in computer science, and spent his summers interning under his father, where he finally realised what a shambles his business operations were. When he finally got a look into his fatherās accounts, he felt his heart drop. He went home to his mother and asked if she knew, he explained exactly what a mess they were in, but he noticed before too long that her eyes were glazed over, and she hadnāt said a word. Neither of them could fix things, they just werenāt capable; Theodore knew that as soon as he graduated, that would be his job.
Despite the impending stress, Theodore did get something out of college. He had fun, made friends, went to parties, stole kisses in dark corners and woke up next to all sorts of people. When those people were men heād flee in the morning, pray they wouldnāt remember him, and hide in janitorās closets and behind bushes whenever he saw them coming on campus.
In his junior year, he started hiding more often. Another scandal, Reynolds Techās biggest to date, rocked the tabloids - his father had foolishly announced (on fucking Twitter, of all places,) that they were in the development stages of their latest product - the R Phone. Needless to say, they were sued within an inch of their lives, and the paparazzi returned in swathes. Their stocks plummeted, and for the rest of the year Theodore found himself frantically trying to contact his unresponsive father and consulting with the companyās higher ups, only to finally getting a response from his dad, telling him that heād āfigured it out.ā At the time, Theodore couldnāt bring himself to ask how - he was exhausted, and he needed a break from it. For the moment, he was just grateful that things had gone back to normal.
In his senior year, he met a nice girl, one who seemed sensible and found it in her heart to relate to him despite their different upbringings. She was smart, witty, funny, and by that Thanksgiving, he was quite convinced he loved her. Foolishly, he brought her home for the holidays, only to find out rather unceremoniously that he was engaged. As it turned out, his father hadnāt been the one to fix that mess - it was the head of Hawthorne Industries, who was thrilled to have secured such a respectable fiance for his daughter. When his (now ex-)girlfriend stormed out in tears, and Theodore pleaded with them for a way out, his dad simply shrugged. According to him, it was just the nature of the business - it didnāt matter that he and Joselyn Hawthorne had been begrudgingly acquainted for years, and spent all of their time making fun of each other, or everybody else together. The decision had been made.
At least he had the chance to reform Reynolds Tech first. Hawthorne wasnāt entirely eager to prop their business up forever under unstable leadership; it was Theodoreās job to work his way up and prove himself worthy of the marriage he didnāt want. All at once, the spotlight was on him; his name wasnāt just popping up in shitty tabloids anymore. There was real, serious pressure, and his father loved to remind him of what was at stake, and how he would be taking the heat from now on regardless of who took the shot.
He spent years struggling to keep his cool. He would work a 12 hour day, go home, have a prompt and scheduled panic attack in the bath, and then head to bed, ready to repeat it all the next day. That was normal. He was normal. Everything was fine.
Eventually, he began to take real control. The executives and the board saw that he took his position seriously, and so they trusted him - they wanted to hear his ideas. First, he followed the advice of their PR specialists. Reynolds Tech needed to make a positive impact on the mobile world, lest their R Phone shitshow be the first thing that popped up when anybody googled āReynolds Tech phonesā for the rest of time. Theodore pitched they branch out into app development and small-scale software, and the snowball rolled from there. All of a sudden they were ripping off Apple again, but effectively - they opened stores across the country, and their stocks skyrocketed. While everybody else celebrated, Theodore stayed numb, waiting for the plummet after the high.
For a while, Theodore took charge of those stores remotely. He was content to act as a puppet master, locked away in a corporate skyscraper - until Hawthorne industries got in touch again. Apparently, Joselyn had business in some random city in Rhode Island, and for whatever reason she needed his āsupervisionā while she was there. Under those āinstructions,ā (although it sounded an awful lot more like blackmail,) Theodore announced at the next board meeting that he along with a few of his most trusted employees were going to open their store in Islebury themselves, and off he went, waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
