Dr Henry Jekyll | Edward Hyde

“The experiment. It was never meant to become… this..”

“Not about you.. And him.. And.. Everything. Please, don't go?”

“… I don't know what to think anymore, Margo. I really don't.”

He'd been.. Somewhat preoccupied, shall we say?

“Not particularly.”

He'd been putting it off, if he were entirely honest.

“Perhaps that is wise.”

//Or early, depending on which way you want to look at it.

//It just wasn't happening last night 😩

“Are you quite alright, Margo?”

//strygglinv to sleep and it's projecting onti them 😩

Henry is trying and failing to sleep, staring somewhere in the middle distance.

throwing our toasters.”

Adam with a faint, forgiving smile. “Remarkable craftsmanship. Even after being cast like a stone, it survives.”

Straightening, Jekyll’s expression softened. “Perhaps it is not only fear that teaches us, Yeshua,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps mercy does too—when we are forgiven for-

“You’ve performed a most dramatic experiment, my friend.”

He bent to examine the toaster’s battered side, fingers brushing the dent with an almost tender precision. “It appears resilient enough,” he murmured, glancing toward-

Jekyll was the first to move, stepping forward from where he had been frozen mid-thought. His face was a mixture of alarm and awe, as though he had just witnessed both science and chaos at once.

“My word,” he breathed, surveying the scorched wall and the trembling creature.-

Then his eyes flicked to Erik, amusement touching his tone. “Though, I confess, the hum is rather ominous. One might almost believe it does possess a soul.”

“Fascinating,” he murmured, crouching slightly to inspect the mechanism. “Some form of electrical heating, I should think—filaments converting current into radiant energy.”

He glanced toward Yeshua with a faint, almost boyish smile. “Not alive, I assure you. Merely efficient.”

Henry dragged a ragged breath, his eyes red-rimmed, glistening. “God forgive me, I cannot see him as myself. I cannot. But…” His jaw clenched hard as though forcing the words out hurt. “I will speak to him. I will face him.”

“I have lived in silence because I thought it safer for you. Because I thought if I kept myself hidden, you would never have to touch the darkness in me. And now—now you tell me you love it. Him. Me.”

“Margo…” The name cracked in his throat, pained, reverent, desperate all at once. He turned away from her, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as though he could blot out the sting of her tears or his own.

That you’d rather have my shadow than the man standing in front of you?”

It wasn’t an accusation so much as a wound laid bare.

His fingers tightened around the bench until they trembled. He looked at her fully now, eyes glassy with hurt.

“Do you understand what you’re saying to me?” he asked quietly. “That the part of me I loathe, the part I’ve tried to bury, is the one you’ve chosen?-

“He never hesitated…” Henry repeated her words under his breath, a bitter, stunned sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “And yet I—” He stopped himself, swallowing hard. “I have loved you all this time, Margo. God help me, even in my silence I thought you knew. And you give that word to him.”
-

“You…” His voice cracked before he steadied it. “You love him.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an echo of the thing already written across her face. He drew a ragged breath, eyes flicking from the floor to her and back, like he couldn’t decide which was safer to look at.
-

Henry went very still, as though her words had struck him physically. The room seemed to shrink around them, every sound — the hiss of the lamps, the faint tick of a clock — suddenly louder.

His lips parted once, closed again. He pressed his palm flat to the edge of the workbench, knuckles white.
-

When you look at him… when you see him smile at you with my face, do you not fear what he is beneath it?”

As though he were some misunderstood soul who only needs kindness. You speak of him like he is—” Henry stopped, chest rising sharply, as though the words themselves were too bitter to finish.

Finally, he looked at her, his eyes wide with something almost childlike. “Tell me, Margo.

You call him not a monster, but I know what he is better than anyone. He came from me. He is everything I cannot be, everything I cannot allow myself to become.”

He paced a short distance, raking a trembling hand through his hair. “And yet you… you defend him.

Henry’s brows drew together, lines etching deeper across his tired face. He turned toward her, almost sharply, though his voice carried more ache than anger.

“Margo, how can you say that? You’ve seen him—you’ve seen what he does, what he’s capable of.

Henry’s jaw tightened.

“He’s dangerous.”