The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Killing Time

Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make a busy mind. Prick. Busy hands make - shit.
The embroidery of vulgar and generally unpleasant words that Edward Hyde was begrudgingly working on bounced against the wall after it was flung away from him in a sudden flaring burst of red hot rage. He'd managed to stab himself in the thumb partway through embroidering the word  'Poppycock', leaving it as the nonsensical word 'Poppycc'. Already a bead of blood began to form. If he were to look at the crimson liquid with the odd intensity that he did so often direct towards things that did not necessarily always deserve as much though as he would give it, he would have noticed that it was not quite as crimson as it had once been, but rather had an odd green swirling in the liquid, unable to properly blend into the blood.

Oh, he was bored out of his bleeding mind and there was no way he could alleviate the torturous monotony that was forced upon him wholly against his will. Well, technically it was his own doing as he had told Henry that he could spend a night indoors like a good little citizen that had never had the will to truly live, and with his insistence that he could do so as easily as anyone else, he quite promptly realised that no, no he really could not just stay indoors and not get up to even the slightest scrap of mischief.
Although the door was not locked and the window was open a crack, it was as if he was trapped within the four walls of the good Dr. Jekyll's office.

Hyde was not a man of his word, anybody that had the misfortune of coming across the impish blond fellow could account for that. but he was stubborn and, damn it all, he would not let the accursed doctor have the satisfaction of being proven right.

It was just one night, surely he could find a way to fill the few measly hours it would take for his victory to be claimed. That should not have been all that hard, and yet he was already so bored he was considering tearing out his fingernails just so there was something happening to break away from the tedium. Much like absolutely every other aspect of his life, Edward had not thought through the implications of his decisions and was paying the price for once more falling victim to his hubris.

The clock ticked quietly on the wall, but with his abnormally sharp hearing each tick and each tock might as well have been thunder, mocking him with every agonizingly slow sound. Had the clock been deliberately slowed just to mock him? He would not have been surprised! The damned Jekyll would take any and every opportunity to torment and terrorise him, and he knew this without a shadow of a doubt because he was the doctor and he would take every chance he got - and would make even more on top of what was given to him - to make the man's life a living hell, so why would the other not be the same?

Letting out a sigh to try and break the maddening silence, he raked his fingers through his hair, nails pricking his scalp unpleasantly, only stopping when he hit a snag so severe he had wrenched his head back with a snap. Thankfully there was nothing hard behind him, his mind could not handle being even more discombobulated than it already was.
Still busy with freeing his hand from the golden mess that was his hair, the second reached blindly for the open bottle on the table. Miraculously he managed to clasp it rather than sending it tumbling down onto the floor, and without skipping a beat he took an excessively long swig of the wine. There was no guilt in his drinking this - not guilt from Hyde as he was incapable of such emotions, but from Jekyll, the wine having been one of many gifts from people that he was supposed to recognise that was graciously accepted with a smile that had begun to ache fiercely the longer he was forced to maintain it - and there was certainly not going to be any left. Thankfully the office was well stocked in that regard, and he could have almost thanked the pitiful man who owned the office he was locked up in for having such an unfortunate and unhealthy coping mechanism that continued to work wonderfully in his favour.

The embroidery had already been forgotten, left against the wall where he had so unceremoniously disposed of it, as was the book he had attempted to read before realising that his vision swam far too much for him to be able to focus, as was the page that he had begun to doodle crude and inappropriate images on that he had intended to tear apart and hide in various books about the room. It had only been an hour and a half since he declared he would be a good little man and would stay put in the room, and he had already managed to exhaust everything that he had even considered potentially amusing.

Once more he let out a displeased groan, reaching his arms up as if reaching up into the heavens in a plea for release, not yet having put aside the wine bottle that he was still clasping as if his life depended on it. Yet another bored gulp left the bottle even more empty than it had been moments prior, and after sloshing it about for a heartbeat or so to simply hear the noise it made, he curled his legs up under him and settled the bottle in his lap. Taking in as deep a breath as he was capable of, he blew against the top in an attempt to make a tune, which did not work nearly as well as he hoped it might.

Oh, it was going to be a long, long night.