The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Sleep is for the wise

Rachel had gotten herself nice and cosy in her bed, blankets drawn up around her to combat the chilly night air. The darkness of the room was broken only by the faint glow of moonlight filtering in through her only partially draw curtains. All in all, she was perfectly content and comfortable but try as she might, she could not get to sleep. It was not a feeling of wrongness per say that was keeping the welcomed rest from her, but there was definitely something that made it so that try as she might, slumber simply would not come to her. With a sleepy little grumble, the woman blinked her eyes open. If she couldn't get to sleep as she was, she might as well try a cup of warm milk.

The very first thing she saw when she opened her eyes were a pair of strange green orbs that seemed to glow in the moonlight. These orbs, she was quick to recognise, were eyes set the sunken sockets of a pale, almost skeletal face, a face that seemed to be near split ear to ear with a wide maniacal grin that exposed far too many teeth than what a person traditionally had. If this was not unpleasant enough as it was, the creature was crouched on her bedside table, talons digging into the wood with such an intensity that it likely would leave dents, its head tilted so far to the side that one would not need to reach too far to come to the conclusion that its neck had been broken.

Rachel, however, was not frightened by the sudden appearance of this grinning spectre of the night. In fact, she drew her pillow up like a weapon and used it to swat the beast right in the face. She knew with complete certainty that there was no stability in its posture and once the pillow struck its face, the creature fell backwards in a cloud of golden hair and flailing limbs.

"Edward Hyde," she chastised, rubbing her eyes to try and trick them into into adjusting to the gloom, "What are you doing in my room?" She folded her arms into something that she hoped made her look stern enough to distract from the amusement she was losing the battle against.

"I was bored." huffed the not so fearsome beast, flailing and clawing his hands hard enough to force himself up into a sitting position. He had pulled himself down once because he was sitting on his cloak and so needed to squirm a little so he could finally land in a cross legged position. "It's not a crime to be bored," he continued sulkily, "But it might as well be the punishment."

"Alright, let me rephrase that. Why are you here in my room right now when I am trying to get to sleep?" In spite of herself she couldn't help but let out a chuckle at this, which managed to escape before he could hide it away behind her hand. 

"First of all, you're not trying to sleep now, so that isn't a point you can use now, and secondly, everyone else told me to stop bothering them while they're working and I still can't go out because fucking Henry placed fucking guards at every fucking entrance and window." One hand was busy gesticulating about with no readily identifiable rhyme or reason whole the other had been assigned the task of supporting his chin, which was not the easiest thing in the world considering how much the knee he was resting the elbow on was shaking and generally bouncing about.

"No sympathy for you not being allowed to go out," the woman returned, "You could get lost or hurt so it'll do you good to have some time inside rather than running about like you do." As Rachel spoke, an idea was beginning to form in her mind, sluggish as she still so desperately wanted to be asleep, "How's about this, if you head down to the kitchen and come back with a cup of warm milk and honey, and not too much honey mind you, just like how I make it for you, then you have free run in the kitchen for the rest of the night to do whatever you might want to do, as long as you don't go and waste the ingredients I just bought? That'll give you something to do, right?"

"Ordinarily," said he, rocking back so far he almost fell, once more relying on flailing to keep himself upright, "But given that I am given no other option other than go mad in my purgatory, I will have to take you up on your offer," he paused, leaning forward in a way that the moonlight cast a strange mix of light and shadow across his features, making him look precisely as mad as he claimed he might go, "And besides, I stole a recipe from Doddle and I've been itching to try it out." There was nobody around who could hear him say this, but he still lowered his volume so that it came across more conspiratorial than it needed to be. He used his lean as leverage to rise to his feet in a way that was too smooth compared to his jerkier motions previously.

"Are you going to make me regret this?" asked she, knowing already that it was going to be a bad decision and so his statement had done nothing to make her feel as if the offer was more of a bad decision than she knew it was going to be.

"Yes!" shouted Hyde as he made to run out the door, already giggling in the sort of way that only boded disaster.

"Don't forget my milk!" Rachel called after him, deciding it was wise to cut the loss and, if he did arrive with her drink, she would just be pleasantly surprised.

Rachel found, when she entered the kitchens the following morning, that she had absolutely no idea what it was that the man had attempted to make, outside of a mess at least. Whatever hopes she had for a quiet morning had been destroyed, but she had expected as such so the hoped were not all that high, and with no real place to complain since she had given the go-ahead, she knew there was no use getting too bothered by cleaning the mess that Edward had clearly not even tried to clean when he was there.