The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

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Henry's breath was hitching horribly in his chest, his lungs burning with all the ferocity of a raging fire, his vision blurring no matter how he fought to focus his eyes on anything at all. His fingernails were digging in so intensely into his palms that he broke the skin and had even managed to tear one of his fingernails back, though he could barely feel the pain of that when compared to the torment racing through his body like lightning. Something was terribly, horribly wrong with him and it was, to be frank utterly terrifying to him. 

On shaky feet, he staggered his way over to the little mirror on the table, the only one that had thus far survived both Edward's and his own path of destruction. This had not been the smooth movement that he had hoped for as his leg failed him partway through the short yet endless walk and he only just managed to catch himself on the closest end of the table that was his destination. With his teeth gritted as hard as he could, he hauled himself over to where the mirror rested, slumping himself down onto the chair that was thankfully tucked underneath.

It was worse than he expected, and he had very little hope that things could seem well. He wanted to think that his face had simply felt wet from sweat - as ghastly as that would have been - but it took a single glance to prove this was not the case. Each and every orifice of the man's face was leaking a steady stream of green, which he could suppose did explain why his face was stinging as fiercely as it was. He brought a hand to his face, part of him not wanting to believe what he was seeing, but unfortunately when the majority of his senses supported what he was seeing, he had no other alternative than to accept what was happening to him was very much real. 

His body was having a bad reaction to the newest batch of the formula, that he could presume rather safely, but he could not think of any reason for this to have been any different from those he had taken in the past. Perhaps, he supposed, there had been something that had cross contaminated one or more of the ingredients. This was not completely out of the question as he had, in fact, not picked them up in person but had rather had them delivered with a collection of other things that had been ordered for the Society. It would be all too easy for something to have unintentionally mixed with something else. Unfortunately if this was the case, he had no way to determine what it was that had done the contamination. 
Oh, if that was the case he would have to warn the others who had received something from the same order, as it meant the chance of someone else's work being affected was far too high for his liking, and he would rather not have anyone else's studies be damaged over something like that.

Just as he reasoned the most likely cause for what had happened to him, his head still spinning in a way that made completing a single fully coherent thought a task and a half, there was a knock on the door. Even if this knock was gentle, hesitant even, it shot a jolt of pain through his temples and it took all that he had left in him to not cry out in pain. 

"Do give me a moment, won't you?" Henry called through the door, surprising himself with just how calm and collected his voice sounded given the fact he was horribly panicked in reality. 

He had given himself a moment to collect himself, and that was not enough time, not by half, to return him to the illusion of normalcy, but he had presented himself with more impossible odds and came off victorious before, and he would do it again. As he scrubbed his face with a handkerchief, not so vigorously that his face would show the marks of his effort, he tried to smoothen his breathing out as much as he possibly could, tapping at his cheeks until the smile he saw in the mirror could have been easily mistaken for being genuine. With one last deep breath as he hid away the soiled handkerchiefs - plural as he was far too much of a mess for just one - away to be dealt with when he had a moment, he rose out of the chair, still resting a hand on its back to steady himself, not wanting to risk the illusion of composure he was trying impossibly hard to maintain, and then finally turned to the door.

"Please, do come in. I am terribly for keeping you waiting like I did." Henry didn't recognise his own voice even as he spoke the words aloud. 

"Sorry for bothering you when you're all busy and everything," spoke Jasper as he made his way into the office, his voice wavering with an uncertainty that Henry was near envious of, "It's just that the others kept askin' me about my work and treating me like a proper scientist again and I..." He did not explain what he did verbally but the intensity of his flailing spoke for itself.

"Now, Jasper," Jekyll began, "They have no more of a claim on the title of scientist than you, you are a real scientist. It is, of course, understandable if you became a little overwhelmed, and there is no shame in that, but there is no need to look so worried. I can assure you that you are not the only one here that feels the same uncertainties that you do. If fact, I am almost certain that each and every one of those you were just speaking with have had the very same doubts in their abilities that you are experiencing right now, but have gotten better at masking it. Just because they might pretend to be confident, it does not mean it is true." He was barely paying attention to what he was saying, running almost entirely on autopilot as his vision began to swim worse than it had before, his head aching and now, much to his disapproval, his joints were starting to throb uncomfortably too. "But Jasper," he continued, knowing he needed to be alone and already feeling guilty about the fact he needed to chase the lad away, "You did not run out during a conversation, did you? I would worry if I had somehow offended a person if they did that to me."

"Did I...? Oh! Oh dear!" the werewolf squeaked, eyes widening significantly before he turned and ran off as quickly as he had come, tossing an awkward, "Sorry!" over his shoulder as he vanished out the door.

Once alone, he slumped himself back down in the chair, burying his head in his hands, letting himself have just a moment to suffer genuinely before he needed to once more regain his composure and leave his office, even if it served as both a prison and safe haven.