*excited noises* Uhhh three roses!!!! Hope you like!!!
First, this is from "Shiver" a John Tyler one-shot that is in my drafts for AGES.
He gripped the wheel tightly as he thought of Mary, of her arrogance and contempt for him. The way she treated him when he did her the favour of revealing the loopholes he knew so well that left women so exposed, so vulnerable to him. John hated the way she didn't even consider his proposal, his help.
There was a gulf between Mary's behaviour and what he had just witnessed. There was a pure, almost angelic kindness in how the nurse — Thomasin, he remembered — acted. The care and zeal she had for a dying old man who probably didn't have more than a few measly weeks to live. For a moment, John envied the attention the old man received from the young woman. John had noticed the affable familiarity between them. He wanted that for himself, that…affection.
John didn't even realize that he had already returned to the Twin Cities hotel, only when he parked the red vehicle did he realize how interested in the nurse he was. The lapse of the immaculate sparkle of the young woman's smile flashed in his mind. Something seemed to snap inside him, as if a key had been turned, or a switch pressed. John sighed in another attempt to calm down. A slight discomfort below the waist gave away something he already knew.
It would be a long night of meditation.
Second, a lil snippet from "Young American", my haimgruder short-fic, also lying in my drafts for some time now, it is staring at me from the docs page so here it is.
Sitting up, Eden took a deep breath, her well-cut nails painted beige as opposed to the usual cobalt blue, tapping against the zipper of her cheap little black leather bag that rested on her lap. If she was honest, and she always was, it wasn't not getting the job that scared her, but being surrounded by close-minded old men who most likely wouldn't be content to just stare.
Linda warned her about this.
Linda was her neighbour, friend and former owner of the position she applied for. She knew that Eden was in need of a job, especially after what happened, she thought about it a bit and they both talked about the possibility. Linda had told her that her typing skills would come in handy.
Oh, if Linda had known what she used to use those abilities for, she wouldn't even have suggested that her friend work with them.
The truth was, Eden March spent her mornings helping an old friend of her father's — an Irish gentleman who had lived in the US since being exiled as an unfaithful guerrilla ex-member of the IRA — named Declan. He owned a small bookshop, which at first looked like an ordinary bookshop owned by a nice old man, but which contained one of the most magnificent collections of books on Communism, Socialism, Bolshevism, and Marxism that Eden had ever seen. Declan had a space in his attic where he would meet with some young revolutionaries, and together they would run a newspaper column on social democratic politics.
That's where Eden's typist skills came in.
Working almost full time as a writer for a small left-wing newspaper was rewarding, she loved it, learned a lot, lived a lot, and it was great while it lasted.
Her sister needed her full attention, just like her nephew, and she had less and less time for her work as an unpaid pseudo-journalist. Too bad, she still wasn't able to take care of Nellie. Nell was gone, and she had no choice but to take the reins of someone else's life but herself.
The rustling of some sheets of paper brings her back to the present.
Inhale. Expires. She remembers Linda's advice.
And as a bonus, because I know you have a AMAZING Brice fic in progress, I'll share a piece of mine as an offering, bc you inspired me sm to improve my writing skills. This is from "If I Give My Heart to You".
Autoimmune encephalitis, the doctors said. Two misdiagnoses later and the disease was already in its final stages. Make her comfortable, stick around and say goodbye. It was the advice given.
Experimental treatments were considered, but the Catledge siblings didn't want to inflict any more suffering on their poor mother.
Brice felt the corners of his eyes sting with the memory of Grace's final days. He moved her to his room, where he could keep an eye on her. A desk by the bed and stacks of papers to sign. A cheeky tear slipped down the waterline of his eye. Many bad memories were made during the worst periods of the illness, but without a doubt the hallucinations she had with his father were the ones that shattered his chest the most.
On the last day, after a particularly severe seizure, Brice lay awake most of the night, sitting in an armchair beside the bed, trying to bring down his mother's fever with cold cloths, when she suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer. Brice recalled with a shudder the lack of sparkle — of life — in the indigo of her confused eyes. Grace repeated disconnected phrases deliriously, babbling half-words, calling him 'Harry'. He said nothing, just leaned over, and gently held his mother's wrinkled hand, whispering sweet words each time she looked scared, or confused.
Later, just before sunrise, she fell asleep with heavy eyes and slow breathing, and he knew that this time, she wouldn't wake up again. So he hugged her and cried. He cried the hardest of his entire life. Until his eyes stung, and his throat itched, until the blue sleeve of Grace's nightgown was soaked with his sweat and tears, until the only things he was able to feel were the hot trails on his cheeks and the stinging pain beneath his sternum.
Icy splatters hit his skin, and he stared at the gray sky. The pouring rain drove him off the porch, as if it mourned him or was just tired of watching him grieve.
I hope you've enjoyed those! I'm working to finish them, now that I finally have the free time I needed! Thank you for the ask 💜, beloved!!