The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

A Not Quite Kindred Spirit

The night was full of ghosts and ghouls and all manner of beastly beasts, and worst of all it was positively crawling with people as they were going about whatever clandestine business they happened to have in the darkness of the night. It was a fearsome time, danger lurking around each and every corner. Even if the danger wasn't necessarily dangerous for one person, it was as sure as hell dangerous for at least somebody out there, and woe to whosoever it was that the danger was a threat towards. For some it was like a waking nightmare, a horror stemming from the most wonderfully despicable debauchery that would almost certainly have any good lady or gent swooning haphazardly downwards if they even caught wind of it. This was, of course, the best time in the whole wide world for the self proclaimed Spirit of London at Night.

With the world swallowed up by a moonless darkness, the gas lights flickering and dancing about as if they might die away at any moment, the movements of those out at such an ungodly hour appeared little more than a shadow amongst the shadows. It was the sort of night that filled Edward Hyde with a bestial madness that raced though his body as it shocked his nerves deliciously, this being the only thing faster than his paces through the city.
With his heart thundering loud and fast in his ears, he ran and ran and ran some more, weaving about the darkness and miraculously managing to keep his balance no matter how haphazardly his footfells came. This said, he'd hardly even notice that his ankles had rolled if they did, leaving the poor doctor to be hobbling about on multiply strained ankles in the morning. It was more miraculous that he had yet to outright break something in their shared body when he was out and about living the life that came from no need for restraint.

Laughter bubbled out of his mouth, wild and unchecked, and horribly grating on whatever ear was unfortunate enough to hear it. He hadn't realised he had been laughing at all until it ended in a coughing wheeze that forced him to slow his pace to recover from.

He had managed to make a decent amount of distance in his brief recovery, and had not been paying nearly enough attention to the world around him. He had only just begun to pick up his speed again before this was cut to a very abrupt stop.

With an audible thud, there were two men sprawled across the ground in a most undignified manner, the shorter of the two landing right on top of them. For such an oddly short fellow, he was dreadfully heavy. Thankfully there was no one but the two of them close enough to see them, but that made the whole thing seem worse somehow, since Hyde had nothing to blame for running into the other than his own foolishness. Their hair spread a mixture of spun gold and sunshine across the unclean ground beneath them.

"Get off me, man!" the man declared, already more than sick of being trapped underneath the clumsy stranger.

Hyde, for his part, took this as a prompt to move, but not so much as to move off of the other. As he tried to regain what little wits he had to lose, he managed to keep the poor fellow trapped beneath him.

With an irritable grunt, Dorian wrenched his accidentally pinned down arms free, taking a gamble with the risk that this could sent the other back down onto him.
"I said off, you impudent little bastard!" with this declared with all the theatricism in the world, he shoved Hyde away and into his second sprawling onto the ground in the last few moments.

Sitting up with a huff, Dorian Gray set about dusting himself so that he may come across more presentable. There was little need for this as even being left unruly by this, he was still positively beautiful. With his blond hair falling free about his face, the gentle curls managing to frame his features perfectly, crystal blue eyes blazing with an annoyed fire that seemed to add charm to his features, cheeks flushed with annoyance, and soft pink lips drawn into a pout, he appeared picturesque.

For a moment Hyde even forgot to speak, which was a feat all to itself given that he rarely fell silent longer than the time it took him to draw a breath, and instead gazed over from where he had been so unceremoniously discarded, propped up by his hands, eyes wide. Unfortunately this lasted for only a handful or so of moments before the awe lessened.
"The hell d' you think you're shoving!" he declared as loud as could be, trying to save face by transferring at least some of the blame onto the other, who's crime happened to have been poorly timing his stepping out into the street after his own debaucherous entertainment that the night was providing.

"I beg your pardon?" the situationally more innocent individual exclaimed, deciding that the man he was forced to speak to was positively despicable, even just to look at, "You come hurtling out of god knows where and send me to the ground, and yet you dare act as though I were the one in the wrong?" Although he wasn't the best at acknowledging his own faults, let alone accepting them, he was in fact the one in the right at that moment.

"You're blaming me for you running into me?" Hyde bellowed in response, graciously waiting for the other to clasp at his chest in a suitably dramatic manner before continuing, "You were the one wandering around and getting into people's way!"

If it had been intentionally timed, the fact that the two of them had gone to stand up at the same time wouldn't have come as naturally as it was.

"How dare you, sir! You've made a mess of my coat and taken up far too much of my time with your balderdash already!" Dorian, now standing, rather pointedly adjusted his coat as he said this. Letting out a small 'hrmph', he strode off into the night, wanting to get as far away from the undesirable fellow as he could.

"Oh yeah!" the other exclaimed as the person retreated, "Go on then! Run then, you bloody coward!" Although he had shouted this with all the confidence in the world, he turned tail and ran before he turned to see if the other had reacted, rather wanting to avoid a skirmish if he could.
Dorian had no intention of fighting, however, as he found the whole idea to be entirely distasteful.

Hyde fled the scene with merriment in his heart, despite how scandalised he had pretended to be. The interaction was short and not all that pleasant, but it left him with an odd feeling of wanting more. Perhaps it was merely the other's face and disposition that had intrigued him, or something else he couldn't rightly say, but he hoped that he might run into the man he had yet to be introduced to again in the future. Hopefully in a less literal sense.

Later that night, or perhaps come morning, Dorian would find himself telling the man, who's lap he had so delicately draped himself over, at least some of the details of his night, and found himself speaking of the odd interaction with a sense of good humour. He hadn't caught the name of the strange little fellow, but, as he told the man with a tinkling laugh, that made it far better. If their paths did cross again, he'd make sure he would not get the other's name.