Chapter Text
“Miss Ito, truth or dare!”
“Truth!”
Hushed chuckling was followed by a brief, thoughtful silence.
“Tell me, did you ever brew a love potion and intended to use it?”
She scoffed. “No, I find these things rather unethical. Besides, I hardly need love potions now, do I?”
More chuckling. Someone in the crowd agreed enthusiastically.
The sound of glass spinning on the floor could be heard as the chatter died down.
A brief silence.
“Helsby, truth or dare!”
“Truth!”
“Were you the one that broke the coffee machine?”
Amused suspicion crossed the crowd. After a brief pause, Helsby answered playfully, “Guilty~.”
“You ass!”, Griffin exclaimed, “You‘ve been accusing me of breaking that thing for a week straight!”
“Oh, calm down, Seward”, Helsby replied, “You have to admit, it was very funny when you started losing your marbles over it!”
Everyone laughed except for Griffin, who was bickering incomprehensibly.
The glass was spun again.
Griffin murmured, “I‘ll get back at you for this.”
Then, the glass stopped.
“Mister Doddle, truth or dare!”
“Dare!”
This is where things got interesting.
Immediately, everyone was whispering to each other. Ideas were passed back and forth with sadistic intent.
Helsby stayed silent for a while.
“I have an errand for you!”, he said eventually, “See, during the exhibition I lost a treasured lapel pin of mine. I watched it fall to the ground and through the wooden planks of the floor boards.”
“You want me to retrieve it for you?”, Mister Doddle asked earnestly.
“Oh, but I want you to do it efficiently. You see, anybody can just fish between the floor boards and hope to find what was lost. But you need a lot of luck for that to occur.”
Slow, methodical steps approached the spot in which Doddle sat.
“I want you to do this the right way and crawl under the floor boards to get it.”
“Oh dear!”
“I don‘t think that‘s a good idea!”, Rachel interjected, “I‘ve heard some rustling under those wood planks. There might be rats under there!”
“No”, Mister Mosley replied bluntly.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“There‘s no rats under there. You probably just heard me.”
“What? Are you saying you‘ve been crawling under the floor boards?”
“Yup. It‘s dusty down there.”
There was laughter as Rachel stayed in stunned silence.
“I do have to agree with Rachel”, Doddle sputtered, “Even if there are no rats, there might be other perils that have slipped between the planks.”
“Oh!”, Helsby exclaimed in amusement, “Do you hear that? Doesn‘t that sound just like… just like a… “
But instead of finishing his sentence, he started clucking like a chicken. Some lodgers laughed, others joined into a chorus of chicken clucking.
“No! I‘m not using my chicken! I‘m merely stating that this mission might be somewhat dangerous!”
“Don‘t worry, Mister Doddle!”, Mosley reassured, “The space under the floor is perhaps dirty but rather safe.”
Doddle attempted to stutter out a better excuse to not have to go down there, but all reasoning had left him. The clucking of chickens grew louder and louder.
“If it makes it any better”, Mosley offered, “I can go with you. I know my way around there anyways.”
“That‘s no fun at all!”, Sinnett piped up, “If Doddle is too much of a chicken to go alone, then he should use one of his chickens!”
“There‘s no rules stating that someone else can‘t help with someone‘s dare”, Miss Ito corrected, “If Mosley offers to help, then he should be allowed to, I think!”
“I think the person who gave the dare should be the judge of that!”, Sinnett protested.
Helsby hummed pensively. “I do really want my lapel pin back. After all, I do really treasure it.”
He thought this over during another quiet pause.
“Will you do it, if Mosley assists you?”, he asked.
“Yes…”
“Fine. Then I will allow it!”
Paperwork. Lots of it. No matter what he did, Jekyll would always be plagued by mountains and mountains of paperwork. Like a curse, he was haunted by the ever present smell of parchment, impatiently demanding to be written upon with ink that he always managed to spill.
He dreaded it, every evening, to return to his office table to count how many letters had joined the already insurmountable pile. Too many people always demanded too many things from him, which was especially true now that the exhibition was over. The piles of documents needing to be filled out towering over Henry from both sides as they reached for the ceiling.
And of course, he would be able to work through his workload faster if a certain someone would stop whining for just one moment.
Come on!, his reflection pleaded, The exhibition is over! We can finally celebrate the success and you‘re just gonna spend your time here in the office working?
“It can‘t be helped. Now more than ever, I have to get my work done.”
Really? Is that true? What happened to ‘Once the exhibition is over, we can finally relax‘? Are you seriously just going to keep moving without even celebrating the huge milestone we‘ve managed to put behind us?
“We?”, Jekyll spat back, “What did we do to ensure the exhibition‘s success? When did you help during the preparations? Remind me, because I certainly don‘t remember anything of such a nature occurring at all during the last few weeks!”
The small glint of green in the oval mirror twitched as Edward searched for something clever to say.
For what it was worth, the good doctor was simply relieved at the small bout of silence, returning to the contract he had been trying to skim for the past fifteen minutes. He sought the paragraph he had last tried to comprehend. He was used to legal jargon, but with how tired he was he could see the words on the paper start dancing underneath his hovering pen tip.
You didn‘t answer my question!, Edward interrupted, making the rage in Henry‘s chest sizzle up for just a moment, You‘ve been promising me that there would be some sort of payoff once the exhibition was over and done with! And yet, there is no payoff. You simply went back to slaving over your workload as if nothing happened. Can‘t you at least reward yourself for what you have achieved?
“Does it look like I can?”
He stole a seething glance at his blond tormentor who stood determinedly with his hands on his hips. Hyde was exceptionally solid that day, choosing to stay firmly on the ground in human form instead of the crackling of colour and smoke that he so liked to erupt into. The ragged jacket and trousers he appeared in were mere amalgams of actual clothes he owned - a simple afterthought on Hyde‘s part so he didn’t appear in the nude. Despite his confident stance he looked small between the tubes and beakers, a trace of doubt glinting in his eyes.
Well, yes, actually! You‘ve got arms and legs that could help you grab a bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet! The only thing stopping you is your own stubbornness!
“You call me stubborn?”, Jekyll exclaimed appalled.
Well, what else would you call this?, Edward said, crossing his arms, You always promise yourself to be rewarded once you‘re finished with whatever work you‘re faced with, yet you always deprive yourself! Without fail, you have managed to break your promises to yourself over and over. You need to recognise that you will never not have any work to do and try to plan your rewards around it!
“And where in my schedule should I plan this reward you speak of? Should I indulge in my frivolous urges tomorrow? Between 2 to 3 at noon? Just after lunch with the Aberdares and right before my meeting with Brockenshire?”
How about right now? Put down your pen and…
“And what? What exact reward are you expecting me to allow myself? Please tell me to my face, because I have a sneaking suspicion of just what you are implying! And I don‘t like it one bit!”
Well…what we always do…, the small demon murmured. You know… our thing!
Jekyll laughed wryly. The hatred and frustration he had been feeling towards his inner hedonist had been building every time they had been having this conversation. At this point - a tipping point of sorts - he was beginning to even find it humorous. The seething, white loathing he was feeling at the sight of his other side, the sound of his voice in his head and his constant demands - somehow it was the funniest thing in the world.
So he laughed. He laughed a low laugh, shaking his limp head from side to side. And then he just didn‘t stop. He couldn‘t, really. In fact, it just got funnier and funnier, until his laughing sounded almost manic. He banged a fist on his desk as he cackled, sending the top-most letters on the pile to flutter down around him like feathers.
The look of genuine concern that crossed Edwards face was completely unrecognisable to the doctor, as the tears in his eyes and his sleep deprivation blurred his vision until everything was just blocks of colours.
Hyde was tempted to say that this exact type of behaviour is why Henry needed a break. For once, he thought it wiser to just shut his mouth and wait it out. He would never admit it, but he was somewhat afraid of just how uncharacteristic this entire situation was.
Henry started to choke. As the laughing turned painful he had to calm himself down. The Hyde-ish grin on his lips made his reddened cheeks hurt. From underneath his messy bangs Hyde could see the way Henry‘s eyes were closed in false bliss.
The doctor heaved, gulping down air like water in a desert.
“How many times… have I told you…?” He fought the rising laughter that threatened to overtake him again - a sound between a chuckle and silent sobbing. “How many times… have I explained exactly why you can‘t go outside right now? How many times… did you simply not listen?”
Hyde was thankful that there were no empty bottles nearby this time. Jekyll couldn’t hurt him, and even if he could, he wasn‘t the type of person to do that. Yet Edward was nonetheless glad that the good doctor didn‘t have a nearby chance for another ‘dramatic gesture‘.
“How often need I explain to you? Once the search dies down you will be free to return to your business. And yet, all you do is make it all worse! You escape and cause a ruckus at Blackfog, earning enemies and drawing attention to yourself, prolonging the search for you! You plague me with nightmares, not just distracting me from the preparations for the exhibition, but also distracting me from getting you out of the trouble you‘ve put yourself in! I have done nothing that isn’t in your best interest and yet it is still you who has been wronged?”
Well…, Edward murmured, I never really asked you to do those things.
Unfortunately for Edward, that was not the reply Henry wanted. The doctor slammed his fists on his desk, standing up suddenly, sending the towers of paper tumbling and an ink pot to clatter to the ground, staining black.
There was this look in the good doctor‘s face. It was the most terrifying thing Edward had ever seen.
The space under the floorboards was claustrophobically small. Doddle and Mosley had to lie on their stomachs and drag themselves forwards with just their arms. The only light that they had was a small gas-lamp that Mosley kept pushing forwards.
“You weren‘t lying when you said it‘s quite dusty down here”, Doddle remarked with dismay as a small flock of dust tumbled past them like tumbleweed.
Mosley didn‘t reply, much to Doddle‘s disappointment.
Doddle felt a tickle in his nose from all the dust. He stopped crawling for a second, prompting Mosley to look back and see Doddle‘s scrunched up face. His moustache was wiggling from side to side.
For a second, Doddle thought he had defeated his mild dust allergy. Then the tickle came back full force.
His sneeze, though it was as small as that of a baby kitten, was enough to send the dust clouds around him flying about. Great, he thought when seeing the dust swirl around in the air, this is just going to make the allergy worse.
“You alright?”, the hollow-earth submariner inquired.
“Yes, yes. Of course. No need to worry about me!”
Doddle dragged himself a little further, catching up with Mosley, only to sneeze again right next to him.
“Maybe you should have used your chicken”, Mosley remarked.
“No! This is nothing! I didn‘t need to use my chicken just to avoid this little favour. Don‘t even worry about it!”
In truth, Doddle would have probably agreed with Mosley on any other occasion. But during their game of truth or dare, he had managed to become one of the only people to not have used any of their chickens, which made him want to keep them even more. There was no real reason behind why, but imagining himself as the only one to end the game with all his chickens stroked his ego in just the right way.
Mosley stayed expressionless, mostly due to the fact that he was wearing goggles and a scarf covering most of his face. As such, Doddle couldn‘t gage what Mosley was thinking. The simple shrug the masked man gave was all he had to work with.
They continued their crawling in silence.
Much to Doddle‘s frustration, Mosley stayed rather relaxed throughout the whole ordeal. As a hollow-earth submariner, Mosley had explored a couple of caves along the way. Particularly, when exploring the Sneffels mountain to find the buried pocket of a pre-historic world that Arne Saknussemm had believed to be the centre of the earth, did Mosley learn a thing or two about spelunking.
As such, this was actually rather enjoyable to him. Not so much for the man selling experimental candies in a shop down the street.
Doddle sneezed again, sighing with fatigue.
Looking down, his face suddenly lit up.
“My, what have we got here?”, he exclaimed with new vitality.
His sneeze had made the dust flutter around to unearth a small piece of very old paper. In fact, it was a newspaper clipping dating all the way back to 1812. Regrettably, it was not about the famous comet that had passed that year, but about some business scandal of a company that had since been lost to obscurity.
And yet still, this was a rather delightful find.
“Have you heard?”, Mister Doddle asked his partner, “The ’Biscuits and Scones Doughery‘, Est.1809, have officially gone too far by mixing whole grain flour into their sour-dough breads! Clearly, he should have shopped at their rival‘s bakery ’Superior Pies‘ this entire time!”
“I did not know that”, Mosley replied with the same amount of sarcasm, “We should inform the others as soon as we return!”
As Doddle failed to suppress another sneeze, he tucked the single newspaper clipping into the pocket of his waistcoat.
“Say, Mosley”, he said, “You seem to know your way around these parts of the building rather well. How do you orient yourself down here? I can hardly see far in front of me, so how do you know just where to go?”
Mosley thought a little bit about this. To him, orienting himself down here came like second nature, but he was finding it rather difficult to explain to someone who wasn‘t used to this sort of business.
He looked around, trying to find something to help him explain.
“See here!”, he said, pointing towards a large ceiling of cotton to his left, “That‘s the soundproofing around Jekyll‘s office. And over there“, he pointed to a wooden pillar where the cotton ceiling stopped, “that‘s around where Jekyll‘s office ends.”
Doddle looked on with amazement.
“I didn‘t know Doctor Jekyll‘s office was sound proofed!”, he exclaimed. “So if the doctor‘s office is to our left and the floor above us is wooden… then we must be underneath Bird and Archer‘s room! Right where Helsby said he lost the lapel pin!”
Mosley nodded.
A bright smile, brighter than usual, made its way all across Doddle‘s face.
“Why, this is simply brilliant! Mosley, you‘re a real treasure! A veritable genius, my friend!”
“Sshh!”
Doddle‘s smile slid right off his face. Confusion replaced his previous joy.
Mosley put a finger to his scarf-covered lips, then pointed again towards the cotton ceiling.
Doddle paled as he pressed his lips together.
“Can he hear us?”, he whispered, which only made Mosley shush him again.
He grabbed Doddle by the wrist. “Listen!”, he whispered.
Doddle listened more intently, unsure of what he was supposed to be hearing. He was starting to feel a little stupid as he heard nothing.
“Can‘t you hear it?”, Mosley whispered more quietly.
Doddle shook his head.
“Jekyll‘s shouting!”
Doddle listened again, this time trying specifically to discern Jekyll‘s voice. And this time, he did hear it.
Smothered by the thick layer of cotton and the wood on top, Jekyll could be heard screaming so loudly and with so much venom in his voice that Doddle almost didn‘t believe it was Jekyll.
“GIVE ME ONE REASON NOT TO COMPLETELY GET RID OF YOU! ONE SINGLE REASON I SHOULDN‘T JUST GO DOWN THERE AND TELL EVERYONE THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME HERE! THAT YOU SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY IF YOU LET YOURSELF BE SPOTTED IN THIS SOCIETY!”
Doddle felt a shiver run down his spine. He had never heard Jekyll so thoroughly enraged. He hadn‘t even been able to imagine Jekyll mad at all before Frankenstein arrived. To hear him like this, now, through a layer of cotton, was shocking in a way he wouldn‘t be able to describe for a while.
What was worse was the small pause of silence after the screaming. It was a pause where a response was probably supposed to go, but there was nobody responding.
“Who is he talking to?”, Mosley wondered out loud.
Doddle couldn‘t answer that question, but he had a suspicion as to why he couldn‘t hear the person being yelled at.
“Jekyll must be on the telephone. Maybe he‘s talking to some business person he disagrees with.”
“I DON‘T NEED YOU! I HAVE LIVED A WHOLE LIFE WITHOUT YOU BEFORE THAT FATEFUL NIGHT! AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT? IT WAS BETTER!”
Mosley, though his face was covered, was practically drenched in fear. “That‘s some passionate disagreement”, he murmured, “I feel really bad for whoever is being yelled at.”
“IT WAS BETTER! IT WAS BAD BUT IT WAS LEAGUES BETTER THAN THIS HELL YOU HAVE BEEN SUBJECTING ME TO FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS!”
“It‘s eleven in the evening”, Doddle murmured, “Which business person would he be telephoning at eleven in the evening?”
“Someone he‘s met two years ago, evidently!”
Unfortunately, neither of the two men knew someone that Doctor Jekyll had met two years ago. They didn‘t know Doctor Jekyll all that well, actually.
It was actually quite surprising to realise just how little they knew about him. Or that there was something to know about him at all. Jekyll always appeared so open and honest with them. And if he had secrets, then they would be ones everyone already knew about (like a certain affair he was definitely having)!
“GOD DAMN YOU, HYDE!”, they heard him scream as if to answer their question, “TAKE ALL YOUR EVIL DEEDS AND ROT IN HELL!”
The two gentlemen in the floor looked at each other with wide eyes. Even behind the goggles, Doddle could see that Mosley was similarly wide-eyed and shocked.
Doddle didn‘t know how to respond to the situation he found himself in. He was rather embarrassed when his body started nervously chuckling. Mosley joined reluctantly, chuckling noiselessly.
The confectionist had to put a hand to his mouth to swallow the sound he almost made when they heard the doctor scream and something in his office crash. Glass shattered and the floor above them shook.
There were tears in the corners of Doddle‘s eyes. He didn‘t really know from which emotion.
“Should we do something about that?”, Mosley asked with a shaking voice.
Doddle steadied his breath, “I‘ll bring him a basket of sweets tomorrow morning.”
“Will you put something in them to make him feel relaxed? Like”, Mosely had to think of some relaxing ingredient, “like chamomile?”
“No, I think it will suffice if I make them in the shape of dinosaurs.”
Mosley nodded without thinking. He was finding it hard to recollect himself over the sound of a doctor having a mental breakdown.
Just then, from the opposite side, they heard a knock on the wood. It was Helsby, checking to see if the two had gotten lost. “Are you two down there?”, they could hear him say crystal clearly. That was everything that Mosley needed to snap back to his senses.
He nudged the gas lamp in the direction of Archer and Bird‘s room.
“The lapel pin”, he murmured.
“Right, the pin”, Doddle parroted, “The pin. The pin, the pin, the pin.”
Doddle responded to Helsby with his own knock, but he would rather not shout a response. The faint sounds of Jekyll‘s rage were enough to intimidate him away from raising his voice too much.
The two crawled around, searching for the pin. Mosley pushed the lamp forward, frustrated with how little it illuminated the space around them. Doddle tried squinting through the darkness. He found that he actually saw less when he did it.
Just when they started to realise that this was a much larger task than they anticipated, the light caught onto something small and shiny.
“The pin!”, Doddle exclaimed as he hurried off and snatched it from the ground.
Clumsily, Doddle turned himself around to show off the tiny object.
“Perfect!”, Mosley responded, “Now let‘s get the hell out of here!”
“Yes! I would very much like that!”, Doddle said, “How are we gonna find our way back?”
Mosley had to do nothing but point to where Doddle had crawled past. The space there being suspiciously devoid of all dust.
“We left a snail trail?!”, Doddle realised with dismay.
Mosley didn‘t reply. He simply slithered on back to where he came from. The other man knew to hurry after him. The screaming and crashing was slowly dying down, but neither of these men were in the mood to take any chances.
They were out of there faster than they came.
Upon seeing the two spelunking gentlemen return, Helsby was starting to feel a small tinge of guilt. He had expected the two to return empty handed, and he would have accepted it if they had. He had not expected them to return looking so disheveled.
There was a large layer of grey dust on both of their stomachs and forearms, thick enough to to be picked off by hand. Doddle wouldn‘t stop sneezing, his nose having already turned a soft shade of pink.
As for the rest of his face, he was as white as fresh snow. Both men were pale and cold to the touch, their foreheads damp with adrenaline sweat. All this paired rather well with the haunted look on both of their faces.
“By God, what happened to you two?”, Helsby exclaimed upon laying his eyes on them.
Rachel was nothing short of devastated at the sight of them. “See, I told you that you shouldn‘t go down there! I‘m telling you, we have a rat problem!”
“Actually, it might not have been rats that they saw”, Bird admitted with a face full of shame, “They might have encountered some of my plants down there.”
“What do you mean ‘your plants down there’?” Rachel was starting to lose her god damn mind with these lodgers.
“Well, you see”, Bird explained while averting his eyes, “I‘m working with a kind of man-eating plant who‘s spores might have made their way into the floor. They thrive in dark, humid spaces, so even despite how carefully I work with them, I wouldn‘t be surprised to find a few saplings sprouting down there.”
“AND YOU‘RE TELLING US THIS NOW?”
Bird threw his hands up defensively, “I only thought about that when they were already down there!”
“Alright, calm down now!”, Miss Ito interrupted, “Let‘s just let this be a lesson to us that we should not go back down there. What happened happened, let‘s move on!”
They all nodded abashedly, scratching the back of their necks and sighing.
Then, Doddle and Mosley started chuckling. The lodgers stared, confused. The two were chuckling, sneezing and practically howling with laughter, and nobody knew why.
Helsby was starting to believe that he had managed to officially break them. Perhaps he should be less adventurous next time he had to dare someone anything. Just dare them to tap dance next time!
The dusty men locked eyes. Without further communication, they blurted out in perfect synchronisation, “GOD DAMN YOU, HYDE!”
Their laughter turned contagious. Soon the others held back their own laughter. No-one knew what the joke was.
Ito took a second to get everyone‘s attention as soon as they calmed down. “So, clearly something happened.”
Mosley nodded, brushing tears away under his goggles.
Ito pursed her lips. “May I suggest we return to the party room and you two give us your detailed report?”
“We would love to!”, Doddle chocked, his hands pinned between his knees. His stomach hurt from the crawling and laughing.
“Well, now I‘m in the mood for scones”, Sinnett lamented with a sigh, “What a shame they went out of business seventy years ago.”
“There‘s scones literally to your left! What are you even talking about!”, Rachel said pointing at the scones she had spent the whole day making.
Sinnett glanced at them with initial interest, then frowned. “They‘ve got blueberries on them.”
“Just pick the blueberries off if you don‘t want them!”
“No. There‘s residue on them…”
Rachel sank to the ground, sitting down with a defeated noise next to Jasper who lightly patted her shoulder.
“And you really could‘t hear any of it?”, Doddle asked for the third time at the other side of the room.
Helsby shook his head and shrugged. “I‘m telling you, we couldn‘t even hear that Jekyll was in his office.”
He let his gaze drift back to his returned lapel pin. The shiny thing was made to look like a ship being dragged under the waves by a giant kraken. It was a souvenir that he had gotten in the Caribbean from a small street vendor. It reminded him of his old crew.
He smiled fondly. “I sort of thought he would be at home by now counting sheep!”
“Doddle, of course they couldn‘t hear him“, Mosley repeated, sitting crosslegged on the floor next to Doddle, “That‘s how soundproofing works.”
“Then why did we hear him?”
“We were in the floor!”
The moustached man simply couldn‘t believe it. Sure, it had taken him a while to hear it himself, but when he did it was impossible not to notice. He rested his cheek on his hand, shaking his head while murmuring, “Unbelievable.”
“So“, Ito said from her seat at the snack table, “What should we do about Jekyll losing his mind?”
“I say let him”, Frankenstein simply replied.
She had made herself comfortable on an old green armchair together with a thick blanket and a bowl full of walnuts. Creature sat on the floor next to her, leaning his head on the backrest while rereading the beginning of Paradise Lost. They were both playing the game, but Creature was glad whenever it wasn‘t his turn.
Rachel crossed her arms as her whole body tensed up. “I don‘t know what we should do. If anything, I am just as concerned for Master Hyde as I am for Henry.”
Ito‘s face softened with pity. “Well, we could start with comforting Doctor Jekyll and then maybe eventually ask him about what happened.”
“What do you mean ‘ask him what happened’?”, Griffin grumbled, “What happened was that Hyde set the building on fire! I thought that was kind of obvious!”
“He laid that fire by accident!”, Rachel protested, “Henry is a very understanding man. He‘s not the type to get so mad over an earnest mistake his close assistant made!”
“Yeah, but that mistake set half of London on fire!”
“He‘d forgive him regardless! There has to be something else that we missed!”
“You know what? It doesn‘t matter!”, Helsby interrupted, “Doddle said he‘d make Jekyll a basket full of dino sweets. Dino sweets solve all problems!”
“No, Helsby! Dino sweets don‘t solve all problems!”, Ito said with clenched fists, “Someone needs to go over to Jekyll‘s office and ask him if he is alright!”
“Well, I‘m not gonna do that!”, Frankenstein scoffed while stuffing her mouth full of nuts.
“Me neither!”, Griffin agreed. As did Sinnett, Cantilupe and Tweedy.
“Well, it has to be someone!”, Ito said with determination.
At that, nobody dared to say a thing. Everyone was afraid of the responsibility of approaching their employer, making them avert their eyes from Miss Ito like school children who didn‘t do their homework.
Ito looked back at them all with the disappointment of a teacher.
Just then, Doddle hesitantly leaned forward, reaching for the obvious solution to their conundrum - the bottle that still stood in the centre of the room.
He spun it.
Everyone held their breaths.
As it stopped, Jasper felt his heartbeat pick up speed. The bottle had spoken. It was pointing unmistakably to him.
He shifted uncomfortably on the room’s floor in the corner he had tucked himself into. With puppy eyes, he looked at the bright grin on Doddle‘s face.
“I can still pick truth”, he muttered.
“You won‘t”, was Doddle‘s simple response.
And of course, he was right.
The doors to Jekyll‘s office have never looked so intimidating. The set of stairs that lead up to them accentuated their importance, making it impossible for Jasper to hide behind a sense of casualty.
He looked back to the lodgers. They had coached him on exactly what to say and were now giving him a big thumbs up from their hiding spots.
He gulped and focused on the doors. Raising his shaking knuckles, he realised that he had never actually knocked on these doors. His face grew hot as he remembered only ever bursting into the office of the doctor that had saved him from the cops.
Gathering his courage, he decided to fight that bad habit right here, right now.
He knocked.
And he soon regretted it.
Before he had the opportunity to change his mind, however, the doors swung open and he was met with a perplexed looking Doctor Jekyll.
“Jasper!”, he exclaimed, “What on earth brings you to my office at such a late hour?”
Except for the slight pink tint to his nose and eyes and the slight wetness to his eyelashes, the doctor held not even the faintest trace of distress. His face looked like it had never known worry and his voice was perfectly steady.
Jasper failed to hold back an embarrassing squeak. He was admittedly a lot hairier at the moment than he would have preferred. In fact, he was more wolf than man, feeling embarrassed and inadequate because of it. Not that the doctor minded. He didn‘t even seem to notice.
“Doctor Henry, Sir!”, he stuttered, “Erm, I‘m so sorry. I‘m not bothering you, am I?”
“No! No! Not at all!”, Henry made to reassure, “I was simply surprised to have you come to me so deep into the night!”
“Right, sorry…”
Jasper straightened himself and took a breath or two.
All the while, Jekyll‘s questioning gaze never left the poor boy. He shifted uncomfortably under it, trying to remember the reason he came.
“Can I come in?”, he asked in an attempt to say anything at all.
At this, Jekyll wavered.
“Ah!” He looked back into the darkness of his laboratory, considering for a moment. “Only if you can excuse the mess. I‘ve been turning my office upside down trying to find a misplaced document, you see!”
“Of course!”
The door was pushed further open as Jasper made his way inside. He could faintly make out the annoyed whispering of a few too curious lodgers.
The werewolf would have in truth hesitated to call the state of the office a ‘mess‘. ‘Mess‘ didn‘t capture the level of destruction that the office had been subjected to. No. This was a wreck!
Glass shards were scattered across the floor like it had hailed into the room. Documents were trying to make themselves into a new carpet. The floor was stained black and red and green and yellow, smelling metallic, chemical and a little bit like ink. Even the desk stood at an angle.
The little desk lamp illuminated only Jekyll‘s face as he turned it on, revealing that embarrassment tinted his otherwise serene face.
“I would much appreciate it if you would refrain from mentioning this to the lodgers”, he said regardless with confidence, “I must admit, I had gotten somewhat carried away in my search. The document is quite important, you see. I was making sure that it hadn‘t gotten lost!”
“A-and did you find it?”
“Yes, thankfully! It had slipped under my desk.”
Jekyll brushed his hands on the mahogany wood as he regarded the desk, thinking about something Jasper had no way to find out. He wore a smile as always, earnest and kind like when they had met. His movements were casual yet determined, so why was it that he looked stiff?
Thanks to his new wolfish senses, Jasper found out why. The doctor‘s heartbeat was louder than his breathing, meaning he was more tense than he seemed on first glance. His gestures were pre-calculated. It was just that they were also well-rehearsed.
“I had to move it to reach it”, Jekyll continued, “All was well in the end. Still, you must understand that I wouldn‘t want my lodgers to hear of how unprofessional I was being. I shall learn of my mistakes and take care to organise my paperwork more carefully next time. However, I would rather avoid the lodgers feeling unsafe with how I am handling their papers.”
“Of course!”
Henry made to nudge the desk back into place, dragging it by an inch with much effort and making too much noise. Jasper joined him, moving the thing with ease.
“Ah!” He was caught off-guard at just how strong Jasper was in comparison to him. It took a bit for him to regain his composure. “Thank you, Jasper!”
“Oh! Er, thank you! I mean, no problem…”
God, he was making a fool of himself. He was starting to realise that he had gone terribly off-script ever since he knocked on those god damned doors. Sure, he was glad to have bought themselves some privacy from those prying lodgers, but he had also managed to make their previous coaching completely obsolete.
He took a knocked-over stool and took his seat at the desk, his mind racing with attempts at a good way to address the elephant in the room. Meanwhile, Jekyll checked one last time to see if the desk now stood exactly right.
“So then, what brings you here?”, he said, startling Jasper.
His full attention now on his guest, he took his seat across from him, hands folded on the desk.
All Jasper could do was grin sheepishly, which was impressive considering he did it though a set of wolves‘ teeth.
“Er, well. I wanted to speak to you because… Well, I just wanted to ask… I wanna know if you‘re alright, Sir!”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “Of course, I am. What prompted you to think otherwise?”
“You see, I heard some commotion coming from your room, Sir. And it sounded just a little concerning. I mean, I wasn‘t actively listening! I just happened to hear it while passing by!”
Henry grew pale. His smile grew stiffer but refused to fade.
“Commotion?”, he repeated a little stunned, “You mean you heard me move my desk?”
“Er, no, Sir. It sounded more like you were having an argument.”
Panic was leaking out from under the gentleman‘s facade. Jasper could hear his silent breathing speed up, which made him in turn grow similarly nervous. The doctor stared into nothingness at first. His eyes flickered around, a slight tremble creeping into his voice.
“You heard?”
Jasper nodded, puffing his cheeks out awkwardly.
“How much did you hear?”
“Not much, really. I heard that it had something to do with that Mister Hyde and I think I heard that you were talking to him through the phone?”
The doctor was suddenly bewildered. The most impressive shade of red grew from his cheeks all the way to his neck and ears. He ran a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to hide his face in them.
“I thought the soundproofing was sufficient”, he muttered breathlessly. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
The doctor, Jasper could tell, was fighting a fruitless fight against his own body. Struggling to breathe, struggling to think. He had seen this kind of thing before. Hell, he had experienced it himself many a time! Henry was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“Sir!”, Jasper squeaked, extending his arms to reach from Henry‘s wrists but stopping himself midway. He might be overstepping a boundary by just touching him without permission. “Sir, you need to calm down! The soundproofing is good! The others couldn‘t hear a single thing!”
That succeeded in winning back Henry‘s attention. Jasper‘s heart twisted upon seeing the pleading look in his mentor‘s eyes.
He forced himself to smile comfortingly.
“I could probably hear you better because of these”, he lied pointing at his wolf ears, “And I could only hear you faintly, so you don‘t need to worry about it!”
At first, the worried look in Jekyll‘s face refused to budge. He looked too afraid to believe Jasper, as if he thought the werewolf was just telling him what he wanted to hear. Which, in all fairness, Jasper was doing. He felt a little guilty as he realised it.
Then the doctor‘s face flickered, and with a pained sigh, he let his whole body relax and his face fall. He reached for Jasper‘s still extended hands, grabbing onto his hairy forearms.
“Oh, Jasper!”, he murmured.
The boy caressed the doctor‘s arm in an attempt to comfort him, feeling a little out of place. After all, despite this not being the first time for Henry to open up to him about something rather private, he had only known Doctor Jekyll for a few short weeks.
It was starting to concern him just how quickly a man of Jekyll‘s standing opened up to someone like him about such private topics.
He felt the doctor‘s body shudder as he took a deep breath to collect himself. His eyes were still squeezed shut as he took back his hands, refolded them on his desk and straightened his back. His face looked despairing, but he forced his body into a professional, almost casual posture. Like a lawyer receiving a new client.
Jasper was pleased to notice that the man was breathing more deeply again, though a bit ragged from holding back tears.
He chewed on his lip with canine teeth, thinking about saying something. But he really didn‘t have to. As soon as Jekyll had overcome his short bout of panic, he sighed and the words just came falling out the doctor‘s mouth.
“Lord, I‘ve grown sick of it all. Sick of this office, sick of the work. Lord, Jasper, I fear I may be reaching a breaking-point.”
Jasper nodded, smiling pityingly.
Henry brushed a few stray documents on his desk to the side.
“You have my sincerest gratitude for deciding to stop by, Jasper. As much as it pains me to know someone overheard such an embarrassing moment, I am at least glad to hear that you cared enough about my well-being as to investigate it.”
Jasper nodded, shook his head, nodded again. “That‘s- I mean. Of course, I care! It was really no trouble at all, Sir. It‘s the least I can do.”
“And yet it means the world! Never change your ways, Jasper, we need more men like you!”
Such kind words. And all for Jasper refusing to decline a dare. If he had truly witnessed Jekyll‘s rage from behind a closed door like he had said he had, Jasper would have no doubt made the decision to check in on Jekyll‘s well-being all on his own. But the fact was that he had not made that decision on his own, and so his own mind convinced him he was not as kind a spirit as Jekyll thought he was.
All he could do was sit there and smile, hoping Doctor Jekyll wouldn’t notice how fake he was being.
“You were right”, the doctor continued. He wasn’t even paying attention to his guest. “I did have a disagreement with Mister Hyde. You two haven’t met, I suppose. He is my close assistant and the night-manager of the society. At least he was until he set London ablaze.”
Jekyll rubbed his temples, massaging away a budding headache.
“Jasper, I trust you will keep this to yourself”, he said, making Jasper open his mouth to stop Jekyll from telling him secrets he couldn’t keep, “but I have been taking action to ensure that Mister Hyde does not get caught by the police.”
He had said it too quickly. Jasper regretted not speaking up faster.
Henry didn’t notice. “I will not tell you how, as that would risk us being caught, but know that Mister Hyde has been rather ungrateful. Quite the opposite, he has been rather mad at me, painting me as a villain. Tormenting me, sabotaging the exhibition, robbing me of sleep.”
A sudden panic seized the doctor. With wide eyes, he faced the werewolf. “I‘m not the villain, right? You know this, Jasper. I have nothing but good intentions. I‘m not”, he swallowed, “I‘m not the evil one, right?”
“Er…”
Out of everything to come out of this situation, Jasper had not expected to suddenly be talking about crimes. Was he an accomplice now? With the little information he had been given, he could barely paint himself a picture of what exactly was going on. Jekyll was protecting Mister Hyde from the coppers? And how? Did he lock him in a basement or something?
“Doctor Henry, Sir, I don‘t think I know enough to say that you‘re the villain in this situation.”
Jekyll looked stung. Something in the mirror behind Jasper grabbed Jekyll’s attention. Whatever it was, Jekyll tried to avert his gaze from it.
“But Sir”, Jasper continued, “I don‘t think you are a villain. I mean, I don‘t think there can be such a thing as a villain. Not outside of books, anyways.”
Life wasn’t so black and white for there to be villains and heroes. Little did Jasper know that that wasn’t the first time Jekyll had heard someone correct him on his simplistic morality this week.
“It sounds like you are smothering Mister Hyde with protection he doesn’t want. I mean, from what I know of the man, he needs it-“
Jekyll gave a small chuckle to that.
“-but you can‘t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
Jekyll considered this for a while, turning the thought over in his mind while occasionally being distracted by that mirror again. This was a truth that was painful to hear, that much Jasper could gather by the look on the doctor‘s face. And yet still, Jekyll stayed maddeningly silent for too long.
It was a relief to see him sigh and nod.
“You‘re right, but the situation is unfortunately more complicated than this. You see, Hyde‘s well-being and mine are tied together in an unfortunate way I cannot explain to you. If something were to happen to him, I am also in danger.”
That did make things more difficult. If Jekyll could be bothered to explain the situation in more explicit detail, Jasper might actually be able to help.
“I am not all too bothered”, Henry continued, “by the prospect of being in immediate peril. What I fear, however, is not being able to tend to the Society and the lodgers. Without me, the Society stands no chance of surviving the ire of the public. I cannot allow myself to abandon it.”
“Abandon it? If something were to happen to you then you wouldn’t be abandoning it, I think.”
This was a lot to take in for Jasper. In his head, all he could do was picture Henry in the middle of some dreadful mafia business. Mister Hyde did seem the type to be some reckless member of a street gang. Well, at least he seemed the type to want to be in a street gang. In truth, he did not seem the type to be accepted into one.
All this talk of peril, of needing to protect someone from the police for reasons the doctor could not disclose, was starting to make Jasper feel as though he had just gotten involved in something far larger than he was comfortable.
“Henry? Do I need to be worried? Like, are you gonna be killed soon?”
Jekyll blanched, eyes wide. Then he laughed.
“Killed? Lord, no! I did not mean to give you that impression! No, I am very safe as of right now. Very, very safe! You need not worry!”
Jasper tried to believe it. He didn’t really succeed, but his worries did lessen somewhat. There was no other way he could explain the situation to himself, after all. But Jekyll was so relaxed, it was contagious.
“Jasper, boy, I really do apologise. I myself am a bit frustrated with how vague I need to be in discussing this subject with you. It is, unfortunately, something I cannot truly discuss with anyone.”
“You seem very eager to discuss it, though.”
Henry nodded solemnly. “I suppose that is true. I crave guidance. A second opinion. And yet, I must stay silent. For the protection of the lodgers, the Society and even myself.”
“But you just told me you were hiding Hyde from the police? Doesn’t sharing that information also put all that in danger?”
“Yes, I…”
He blushed. Chuckled nervously as he realised something.
“I did do that, didn’t I?”
“Yep. You did.”
Henry was taking deep breaths, his hands rifling through his hair. Jasper waited patiently for Henry to process his thoughts. There wasn’t anything else he could do, after all.
When the doctor finally looked up at Jasper, the werewolf asked, “Why can‘t you talk about this with me?“
“I am ashamed”, Henry answered honestly.
“Just ashamed? Like with you and Lanyon?”
“More. Mortified.”
“And there‘s nothing else stopping you from talking about this other than your shame?”
“My reputation. It would be ruined if anybody found out about this.”
“Even more so than with the other things you have told me about?”
Jekyll swallowed hard, nodding slowly. “Irreparably.”
Jasper nodded. He recognised that this was something that he could not and so should not pry into. If Jekyll ever did get the chance or courage to disclose that piece of information to someone, then he would be sure to be there. Right now Jekyll wasn’t ready and Jasper couldn’t force him to be ready either.
Best to focus on what they could discuss.
“You said that you being in danger would be abandoning the Society. I think that‘s maybe wrong. It sounds like you are blaming yourself for things you have no control over.”
“But I do have control over it. If I keep Hyde safe then nothing can come in between myself and my work.”
“But if something did happen to Hyde. If he decided to do something or an accident happened and Hyde got hurt. Or if you got hurt and needed to recover. Would you still view it as you abandoning your work if you took a small vacation?”
“Well”, Henry started. He gave up the thought before he finished it, looking like he had been bested in a debate.
“You work a lot”, Jasper stated, “I think you work too much, even!”
By the look in Henry‘s face, Jasper could tell this discussion wouldn’t be easy. But he was sure, more than he had ever been about anything in his whole life, that someone needed to have this discussion with this man. And if it was him who needed to give the doctor his wake-up call, so be it.
“Damn, he really just went inside Doctor Jay‘s office!”, Helsby noted sadly, “I wanted to hear what they would be discussing!”
A chuckle from Griffin, “Maybe we should crawl under the floorboards?”
“No!”, was Rachel‘s stern reply.
Ah, Rachel! Always the mother of the group!
With an ear pressed against the pristine wood of the office‘s door, Flowers noted, “My, these doors really are thick! I can‘t hear a single thing!“
“Would you stop that?” Rachel swatted her away with a broom (Where had she gotten that broom from so quickly?). “We are not spying on Doctor Jay! Not from here and not from under the floorboards!”
“What if we did it from outside Jekyll‘s window?”, Helsby mused half-jokingly, “I have pretty good control over the hot-air balloon. We could get a nice and steady view of the office from there!”
“Jekyll‘s obviously gonna see that!”, Griffin rebutted, “You‘re gonna be spotted before we could even see anything interesting!”
“God, you‘re right! The hot-air balloon is very easy to spot! Griffin, how‘s your research going? You could probably turn it invisible, right?”
“Oh, fuck off!”
That earned a laugh from Helsby and a chuckle from the surrounding lodgers.
Meanwhile, Doctor Maijabi was staring at the door as if he could see through it with his eyepatch lifted. Yet, unfortunately, spirits and the souls of the living are nigh impossible to spot through walls. In this one regard, the spiritual and material world were tragically similar. Maijabi gave an annoyed huff in realising this.
“Rachel is right”, he said, hoping nobody had noticed his own attempt at espionage, “We should respect the doctor‘s privacy. Whatever he is going through must be a rather sensitive subject if his previous meltdown is anything to go by.”
Rachel sighed in relief. “Thank you, Maijabi! At least someone agrees with me!”
“We could question Mister Kaylock about it later, anyways!”, Pennebrygg thought out loud absentmindedly, “It would be a good way of ridding him of his last few chickens!”
And just like that, the air was filled with mischief. Pennebrygg himself only realised what he had suggested once he saw that look on the other lodger‘s faces. As always, he had forgotten to keep his thoughts to himself. To think them through more thoroughly in peace.
Mister Sinnett, his polar opposite and yet still closest friend, was not in the least satisfied with that suggestion, however. His impatient foot-tapping had graduated to pacing until it exploded in frustrated rage.
“I‘m bored”, he bemoaned, “They‘re taking too long!”
His main point of frustration was that the game of truth or dare had been put on hold. Helsby‘s dare had already tested his patience with how long it had taken, and this dare was shaping up to take similarly long.
What was worse to him was that they could not resume the game until Jasper had finished the dare. It was his turn to be spinning the bottle, after all, which meant they definitely had to wait until the boy returned. Else they would be skipping him, catapulting the whole game and turn order into chaos which would annoy a whole host of other lodgers.
And to top it all off, they had no way of knowing if the men in the office were making quick progress or not.
“He‘s right”, Frankenstein grumbled, “They‘re taking too long!”
“What if we invited Jekyll to play with us?”, Tweedy suggested excitedly.
“You‘re right!”, Helsby agreed, “That would give us the chance to interrogate Doctor Jay himself!”
“No!”, Rachel protested, “We can‘t just waltz on over and invite Jekyll to truth or dare! How would we even go about doing that? He‘d get suspicious!”
“We could send you to inquire about your lover boy!”, Helsby teased, “Pretend were only starting the game, casually invite Jekyll to join!”
“Lover boy?” She almost screamed it. Her face had turned the colour of chilli.
“Don‘t pretend we didn’t notice!”, Helsby laughed.
Rachel‘s protests died to her embarrassment.
“We‘re not going to lie to Doctor Jekyll!”, Ito protested instead, “Lying will only cause trouble down the line!”
Frankenstein nodded sagely. “Not to mention, Jekyll would ruin the game! I can‘t imagine a greater killjoy than a stuck-up prude like him!”
“Jekyll can be fun!” Rachel had managed to recollect herself. “He‘s a riot when you get to know him!”
Doubtful looks were cast her way at that statement.
She sighed. “Alright, I wouldn’t call him a riot. But he can take a joke, believe me!”
Griffin smirked. “I guess he could be fun to play with. We could dare him to do some truly scandalous things!”
Frankenstein‘s apprehension for Jekyll‘s participating in the game quickly disappeared at the mere thought of what she could dare him to do. Soon, she grew almost eager to make him join. To torment him and show him the wrath of a true mad scientist.
Rachel suddenly remembered the greater debate that they were having. Somehow, she had temporarily forgotten it to defend Jekyll‘s honour to the lodgers. “No! Jekyll can‘t join our game! What he needs right now is some peace and quiet. Some time to think and reflect on whatever is bothering him! Our game will only make him uncomfortable!”
“You don‘t know that!”, Pennebrygg stated as free of judgement as he always was, “You don‘t even know what is bothering him!”
“We all know it‘s about Hyde”, Ito corrected, “We can assume that Mister Hyde did something to upset Doctor Jekyll. In this case, it is rather likely that Rachel is correct and Jekyll needs some space!”
“What if he‘s lonely?”, Lavender suggested, “Maybe playing a game with us would do him some good? He‘s always in his office, after all. Either that or he‘s talking to the patrons!”
“Jekyll? Lonely?”, someone said, “No way!”
A few people agreed with Lavender. The rest stayed rather sceptical. Someone brought up the fact that Frankenstein might have also contributed to Jekyll‘s state of mind - a statement which Frankenstein returned with a frightening scowl.
Soon the conversation turned into a debate. Sides were taken, factions were formed. A few lodgers declared themselves firm centrists in this matter and decided to simply withdraw from the conversation.
In the midst of the chaos, Helsby decided it was his turn to do what he did best and take the initiative. He himself didn’t know what would be best for the doctor. However, as he had reflected on the matter, he decided that he wanted Jekyll to join their game. He couldn’t quite grasp why, but the thought alone felt somehow right.
Nobody noticed as he approached the door. Only the sound of him knocking made them realise what Helsby was doing.
Panic went through the crowd. As Helsby stood calmly, waiting to be received by the doctor, the lodgers scrambled back to their hiding spots. Tweedy exhaled as much as he could to be as thin as possible behind a Tesla coil. Miss Flowers found herself a chest and practically dove into it. Griffin hid behind a corner and told himself that if he believed hard enough to be invisible it would be so.
Silence returned to the main hall as everyone anticipated the worst.
“Er, what I mean to say- what I‘m trying to tell you…” Jasper had been struggling to form sentences that fully expressed what he thought Henry should be doing. It was simply hard, in the face of such unwavering confidence, to fully trust his own opinion without a hint of doubt. He would get a sentence out only to get stuck on exactly what word to use, suffocating in synonyms and their subtly small differentiations.
Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t hide this struggle behind a confident facade like Jekyll could. Even Edward, who was only passively listening to the conversation, had caught onto it.
The werewolf sighed. “Look! I think you should stop working for tonight. I mean, you‘ve already done so much. Aren‘t you tired?”
“I am tired“, Henry chuckled, “But I‘m not done with the paperwork. I have at least five letters that need to be sent out tomorrow and I will not get them done if I take a break!”
“Then why not ask for help? I mean, I don‘t know about your personal mail, but maybe there‘s something else you could ask someone to do for you?”
“Lanyon has been a great help with the paperwork. But I cannot ask him to do my work for me. This project was my idea. Lanyon is only helping because he is my friend!”
“Well, I don‘t mean Doctor Lanyon. I mean us! It‘s a bit stressful right now with our new patrons and everything, but there has to be someone who would be willing to help you!”
“Absolutely not! I could never ask the lodgers to file my taxes!”
“Why not? They‘re responsible! They can do it!”
“I know that. I mean I could never burden them with my work. They already have their own research taking up their time. All I would do is hold them back.”
Edward had to stifle a yawn. He had heard these excuses many times before. If Edward annoyed Henry with his narrations and self-important speeches, then Henry annoyed Edward with his self-sacrificing work ethic.
To see someone else have to argue with these tired arguments was only a mild source of intrigue, and unfortunately for him, Jasper was not a good debater.
“What about Miss Ito?“, he stuttered, “She‘s responsible and she had finished her presentation for the exhibition long before she had to. I‘m sure she would have loved to help if you had asked her!”
“She might have had a lot of spare time before the exhibition, but she has been assigned a whole host of new tasks that she needs to be working on. Just like everybody else in the Society.”
“And what if you ask her to help you when she is done?”
“I cannot ask her that!”
“But why?”
Jekyll faltered.
“Because…”
But he had no reply. Edward could feel the cogs in the doctor’s head turn through their shared connection, scrambling to find a good excuse to not have to ask a favour of Miss Ito.
Hyde saw an opportunity to help the werewolf boy, and leapt for it.
Because you‘re afraid of talking to Miss Ito. That‘s what‘s stopping you. You are holding yourself back because of your own cowardice. Go on! Tell him! Tell him how afraid you are. Or, of course, you could just give up and finally realise that he is right.
Henry clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to hear any of it. He wanted to be right. He wanted to have Jasper realise that there was nothing he could do and wanted him to give him the compassion he was so deprived of. He didn’t want solutions!
Come now, Doc! You‘re being lazy again! You want things to get easier without you having to work towards changing them. That’s not possible! You should know that for any change to occur you need energy from somewhere! You work with chemicals all the time, so why can‘t you recognise that?
Exasperated, the doctor threw his hands in the air and groaned. Edward could feel that he and Jasper were finally getting through to him. Victory was just on the horizon.
“If you ask for help things will get easier!”, Jasper continued, “Ito could help with paperwork. Someone else might, too. If you need help to ask others, I could stand next to you and help!”
See? Little puppy boy is willing to help you overcome your dumb anxieties! Come on and accept his proposal already!
Perhaps Hyde had expressed himself a bit too harshly. He had been so used to hurting Henry‘s ego to get what he wants that it had come naturally. He felt a sudden resistance rising as the doctor pictured how pathetic he must be looking to the outside. Little shaky Henry, asking Miss Ito for a favour while holding Jaspers hand for comfort. He was a child! Some pathetic little child in need of mummy and daddy‘s comfort!
Hyde had to fix this.
Look, Doc. You want change and change needs energy. Right now you are completely depleted of it. You‘re exhausted, tired, etc, etc, and the thought of asking Miss Ito to take on a part of your burden is scaring you! That is completely fine! If you use the time now to relax and enjoy yourself, if you gather your strength over the night and regenerate a little, then maybe it will be less daunting!
Henry didn’t look at Edward. Neither did he look at Jasper, who was on the edge of his seat and internally willing Jekyll to relent and take that god-damned break. Jekyll could only think of mail and tax and paper and parchment. But eventually, after an excruciating silence, Jekyll let it all go and sighed.
He didn’t say anything. Only looked at Jasper, who was smiling victoriously.
He returned the smile weakly, asking, “And you really do not mind-?”
Three sharp knocks on the door. Casual and confident, impossible to miss.
Henry‘s look of genuine surprise was accompanied by Edward‘s silent grumbling. Both wondered why someone would be knocking at his office door at this time of day, but they had vastly different attitudes about it.
Seeing Helsby standing in the doorframe only left them more confused.
“Hullo, Doctor Jay!”
“Helsby? Is it not half past eleven?”, Jekyll commented more perplexed than annoyed, “I would have thought you would all be resting by now!”
Helsby laughed. “It‘s not even midnight yet! I don‘t go to sleep before two in the morning!”
“Ah, I suppose that‘s true. Still, what brings you here?”
Henry didn’t like that devious smirk Helsby was wearing. To Hyde, however, it was a sign of fun approaching. Mischief was ahead.
The adventurer crossed his arms in a provoking manner. “We‘re playing games as a celebration of the successful exhibition. We thought we might invite you for a cheeky round of truth or dare!”
Behind Jekyll‘s back, Jasper could be heard rustling. There was something nervous in him. As Jekyll turned around, he could see that urgent look in his face that he failed to cleanly interpret. He thought it looked encouraging. Which made sense given the conversation he previously had with Jasper.
Weighing his options, Henry was still unsure.
“Thank you so much for the invite, Helsby!”, he said, following his script, “It sounds like you are all having a lovely time! May I ask, who‘s all playing?”
“All of the lodgers! Jasper included, once he‘s done here!”
Helsby gave the boy a pointed look. The werewolf looked about nervously.
“Except Bryson, of course!”, Helsby quickly added, “He‘s out of the house. In the clouds, I assume!”
Jekyll hummed in agreement.
But he was still not sold. Edward started bouncing up and down. He really, really wanted to go. Truth or dare with all of the lodgers - that sounded like so much fun!
Doc, please accept!
No, wrong approach! He had already upset Henry. Arguing that he should go there for Edward‘s sake was not going to work.
This is the perfect way to take a break!, he argued instead, Think about it! Your favourite lodgers and some games, perhaps some booze, some snacks! And you would be talking with them about something other than work for once! Wouldn’t that be just so nice?
Of course, it could be nice. That is, unless they started asking him about Hyde, about Lanyon, even. Truth or dare was definitely not the type of game Jekyll was best suited to play, simply because he had too many secrets worth keeping.
Yes, but you can always lie about those things. You‘re an extraordinary liar! Nobody would ever suspect a thing! And even if they suspect anything, how would they ever be able to prove it?
Well, that was true. He had been able to fool the lodgers about a whole host of things during the two years he had known them - and he had fooled his closest friends for even longer! Deception was in his nature. He had no reason to be scared.
“I was originally pre-occupied with filing out some paperwork”, Henry thought out loud. He returned his gaze to Jasper. The werewolf looked torn.
When was the last time Henry had spent a good evening with a few close friends? He hadn’t even had enough friends to play truth or dare with since university. Even then, friendships had been rare. He felt something pull him to say yes. Perhaps it was Edward, perhaps it was simple temptation.
He chewed on his lip. Then he nodded.
“Yes, I think I would love to join you!”