The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Spoken behind closed doors

It was not uncommon for there to be a commotion heard behind the door of the good and respectable doctor Henry Jekyll's office, more often than not in the twilit hours that were ordinarily spent in blessed silence. Out of long maintained and sort after respect, the Lodgers who happened to be awake to hear the various ruckuses were kind enough to keep what they heard to themselves, or at least most did, unless they just so happened to be of the mind of gossip and rumours. This morning, as many were, came as no exception to this rule, but some sort of good fortune seemed to have shone down upon the man as none happened to pass by until all was as quiet as the grave once again.

"I cannot believe you were to foolish as to attempt to seduce my  coworker!" was the weary, exasperated exclamation of one Henry Jekyll, his knuckles white from the intensity of his grip upon the windowsill.

/Had it not been for you, my dear doctor,/ a voice that was not there purred into his ear, /It would not have been merely an attempt, and of that I can be certain!/

This was obviously not been quite what the doctor, the single living being in the room, had wanted to hear. His teeth grit hard enough to set his jaw aching insistently, once of his nails cracking against the window that he seemed incapable of releasing, blood dotting around the tender flesh that was now exposed. Of course this was what the man, the being, had hoped for, as his smug grin reflected unnaturally across each and every reflective surface that had not yet been covered away.

"How could you be so foolish?" he hissed, jaw clicking, not yet aware of the new aches and new pains that he had just added to his ever growing collection, "And what if he recognised you? We would be ruined!"

/What?/ the blond beast scoffed from every shadowy recess of the room, /You think I am so underwhelming that your dear Robert would be able to recognise whatever there is of you left?/ He let the implications if this hang in the air as he let out a cackle that could last just as long as he wanted given that he had no need to breath as he presently did not exist, /I can promise you that there's more than enough folk out there that could assure you that I am far better than you ever could hope to be./

"Edward, that's disgusting." said the doctor simply, very much wishing he was a few moment ago where he did not have to have heard that, "I meant in an aesthetic quality. There is more than enough aesthetic similarities between you and I that someone who knows me as well as Lanyon does," he paused, letting out an embarrassed little cough as a result of what his worse self had said still playing in his mind precisely as it was supposed to, "Could easily come to their own conclusions as to the nature of who we are."

/Oh I wouldn't have let him look at me long enough to work anything out, in fact he probably wouldn't have been able to look at me as long as he had if you hadn't stuck your jealous nose into it!/

Jealous? Was Henry jealous? Robert Lanyon was an adult and so he was free to do whatsoever he might want to do and with whosoever he might want to do it with, and Henry had no right to complain about the matter.
Then why did it still sting his heart with the ferocity of a particularly angry hornet - a feeling he had particular familiarity with because when he was but a wee lad he had disturbed a hornets' nest that he discovered in a neighbour's yard, the neighbour having brought the creatures back with them when they traveled overseas and had not thought to warn anyone of their sting until the child had met the business end of several angry stingers - when he thought of Lanyon sharing his affections with another? Before he was able to dwell too long on the thought, he shook his head, and in doing so briefly relieving him of the rambling he was not paying attention to that happened to be about the doctor that now plagued his thoughts.
Out of any and everyone out there in the entirety of the city, why must it have been Robert that Hyde had run into? Surely the crowds were dense enough for the two of them to have simply slipped right by each other without ever having to meet! Did the cruel master of fate wish to laugh at his misfortunes so much that he could never escape?
Escape what? Why, the repercussions of his actions of course! Silly silly man! It was a hell that he had so willingly brought upon himself and yet even now he could not accept the repercussions of his own actions!

Henry's legs felt as though they could not successfully hold him up a moment longer, and so, clenching his heart as if mortally wounded and blinking back stinging tears that would not stop trying to form, he sunk down to the ground, back pressed hard against the wall. The world was beginning to wake up outside his window, but the sound rang as background static in his ears.
The reopening of an old wound, even if it was an emotional one rather than physical, hurt and he was suffering. Suffering as he did when he was young, when he was far less skilled at the art of repressing his emotions, back when he yearned for his friend's touch so much it burned within him.
Oh, thank all that was good and holy that there was nobody there that could see him in such a pitiful state.

/Best you try and snatch him back up doctor, if you're not careful his eyes will be for me and he won't even remember you!/