The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Relaxation

Nestled up as cosy as can be in a warm, fluffy dressing gown that was far too large on him, Edward Hyde was quite sure that what he was living at that particular moment was the very height of luxury, and there was nobody on earth that could change his mind.
it had been some quick thinking on Rachel's part, to keep him from running off and causing problems for himself and every single other person that crossed his path, but he had thankfully agreed to her proposal that the two of them should spend the night pampering themselves as much as they possibly could. Just a chance for the two of them to be friends, no societal obligations or anything to dictate their actions.

Seated by a roaring fire with a glass of fine wine each, clad in the softest pajamas that they owned, and with their hair tied back out of their faces - or, at least for Hyde, as much of it tied back as there could be, the rest out floating about his face like golden spiderwebs, or perhaps rays of light shining off him in a strangely hallowed manner - the two of them were not going to be moving any time soon.

"Oh, you would not believe the inane nonsense that the bloody bastard was trying to convince me to do! Could you imagine, even for a moment, that I would ever be interested in attending a little old woman's eightieth birthday party? So what if she is a patron for the society, I'm sure it's only because she was curious to see what was under Henry's britches!"
The woman of which Edward was referring to in this had nothing but the purest intentions in mind, simply wanting to help aspiring academics flourish and thrive in a world that she was never able to be a part of. If Hyde were to attend the party in question, he would have had more fun than he would want to admit, and so he was kicking against it as hard as he could.

"Oh lord," came Rachel's response, trying to make this sound sincere, despite the sheer amount of giggles that were trying to escape with each passing moment, "I'm sure it would be a dull night," she paused to take a sip of her glass, "But I'm sure that Henry would not have suggested it if he didn't think you could handle it."

"Oh, I know I could handle it, they couldn't handle me!"

"Oh yes, you are particularly fierce and ferocious aren't you?" the chef observed, not believing a single word of it, but knew full well that the man was narcissistic and deluded enough to believe her and eat every word he said up.

"I am exceptionally fierce and ferocious, actually!" Hyde replied, gesticulating wildly, the sleeves of his extra fluffy dressing gown flopping about in a way that made him look significantly closer to 'cute' on a sliding scale between 'cute' and 'terrifying', not that he realised this, "And it wouldn't do to forget it!"

"I don't think you'd ever give me the chance to forget it."

This was met with an absolutely barking roar of laughter from the man, who through his head back with such a force that it was a marvel that he did not give himself some sort of embarrassing whiplash from it. One would have to give Rachel credit where credit was due though, she did not even flinch at the assault of shrill, yet somehow still hoarse laughter that hit her like a brick wall. Well, she had been subjected to it enough in the past that it was easy enough to tune it out by this stage in her life.

"You would not believe how often people do try to forget it, only to learn how grave a mistake that would be!" Edward continued to boast, sounding exceptionally, aggravatingly sure of himself with each and every syllable that he uttered.

"No, I think I'd believe it," Rachel said with a small giggle, but quickly added, "Not that there is any reason for them to, but people always try to downplay others so they can pretend to be better by comparison." She didn't want to have to deal with Hyde trying to justify himself for what could easily be an hour and a half at the very least.

"Quite so!" exclaimed the man, punctuating this with a little too much of a sip from his glass, thankfully not choking on it despite being very close to doing precisely that, "People so often act as if they are some grand entity despite being truthfully so small its laughable, and so when faced with true greatness they are so intimidated they cling to their little insignificant lies!"

The irony of this missed him completely.

"'spose it makes them feel better about themselves then, doesn't it?" Rachel proposed, hiding her grin behind her glass.

Once more, the irony of this flew right on over his head and landed somewhere outside the nearby window.

"What a sad, sad life they must lead!" Edward lamented for the sake of the hypothetical person he was imagining, very much unaware of the fact that this hypothetical person was himself.

"But I'm glad you were able to get out of going," the woman observed, gently diverting the conversation back again, "I think we've had a better night with just the two of us here, if my saying that isn't too much?"

"No no, you're definitely right," said he, the self proclaimed Spirit of London at Night, presently curled up in a chair by a fire and looking impressively feline by doing so, "You were lucky that I agreed to join you here."

Thankfully she was already more than accustomed to the man's one track narcissism, and so did not let it bother her nearly as much as it would have bothered anyone else that had the misfortune of spending so much time in his less than pleasant presence at any given time.

"Yeah," said she, "I suppose I was lucky, wasn't I."