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Jekyll approached the lounge and halted before the door. He took a deep, prolonged breath and let it out in a sigh, the sound of his presence being drowned out by the garbled chatter emanating from the room. Just one more try, he couldn’t possibly run the exhibition on Jasper’s work alone and there was no way he could showcase his own horrific experiments. He put on his most confidence yet reassuring smile, stepped up to the doorway and cleared his throat, gathering an unamused audience of lodgers, all of them confident in knowing what the doctor was about to say.
“Everyone, I know that exhibition preparations aren’t fun, but you really must make your own presentations. It is imperative that we-“
“show the world what the society has to offer” the room parroted. Mr Griffin spoke up.
“Seriously, Jekyll, there’s no way you’re gonna make us do your little circus and open ourselves up to sabotage from the middle class” His comment sparked individual protests from all throughout the room, most of them oozing with that paranoid rubbish that Frankenstein was pouring into their minds alongside a healthy dose of extravagant tales of the power of passion.
“We don’t need those posh people’s money”
“Passion is all that is needed to pursue one’s truest desires”
“If we show off our work, people will surely use it for their own profits”
“Those wealthy bastards only want to burn us for witchcraft”
The protests continued and swirled and overwhelmed Jekyll. That incessant noise, prodding at his mind like an arrogant child prodding him with a stick. Yet the noise continued. Louder and louder and louder until Jekyll couldn’t even hear his own thoughts anymore. This was his life’s work and he was going to lose it to a gang of stubborn overgrown brats with no idea of how much work he had put into this.
He raised a hand to his face and suddenly an unusual clarity blocked all of his senses as an odd feeling of freedom enveloped him. Feeling powerful yet uncontrolled, Jekyll let his hand drop to his side and stared at the room with a silent rage that quietened those looking at him, and then those who had noticed the eerie silence, now everybody was looking at Jekyll and the eerie shade of green his eyes had adopted.
“You know what? I’m sick of you all acting like children! You have no idea what the hell I do to keep this place’s doors open! No idea of the amount of time I spend wasting away in my office scrounging up the funds to keep you bastards from winding up on the streets to keep all of your blasted research in a shitty apartment in the slums!” He yelled, startled the room with such an uncharacteristic outburst. Silence held the room for a few excruciatingly long moments.
“Doc, we’re sorry-“ Cantilupe began, only for Jekyll to cut her off and continue his admonishment.
“If you were sorry then you would go right to your labs and get back to your presentations now! I don’t want to hear a single word about how you can live off of passion alone or how this exhibition is some kind of ridiculous sabotage! The fact of the matter is we need bloody funds to keep you from starving to death and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a bunch of idiotic conspiracy theories ruin what I’ve built!” He bellowed.
Shameful quiet and hushed fear overtook the room as Jekyll blinked and suddenly realised what he’d said. He tidied his hair from the shaken position it had taken during his outburst and put on a calm expression.
“Have your presentations done by the exhibition, good day to you all” he reaffirmed calmly as he uniformly paced away from the door, wracked with guilt and horror at his own outburst but refusing to show it on his face. Rachel and Jasper peered out of the kitchen, attempting to be subtle as they shot confused glances between themselves and towards Jekyll as he wandered away from the quickly emptying lounge. Every other lodger was trudging back to their labs with a slight air of guilt that permeated the lobby.
-
Jekyll awoke the next morning and left to go check on the lodgers, feeling extremely guilty at the outburst he’d made the evening beforehand. He was however shocked to find that the lobby was empty, far too empty at this time, since he’d slept in later than usual, having been kept up late again by his own anxiety-driven insomnia.
He made a round of the building, checking all of the communal rooms, all of which were empty. That was strange, at this time there would almost certainly be someone out and about, even just eating breakfast. He hoped his abominable behaviour hadn’t been too much for the lodgers.
He was surprised to find that as he passed each room, there was clearly the sound of work being well under way, and his peering through the door windows of the labs confirmed his suspicions. The entire building was hard at work on their presentations. A feeling of relief washed over him, but was quickly squandered by the realisation that he must have truly terrified the lodgers if in a single night every single one of them had gotten back to work without a struggle.
He paced back to his office, hastily avoiding the rooms that were occupied in the hopes that he could avoid any confrontation and shut the doors as silently but succinctly as possible. He leaned up against the door and assumed the tired position he seemed to have made a strong habit of adopting when he was having a rough morning. A sinking feeling lurked in his chest as he leaned against the hardwood in silence, not even allowed the mental distraction of Hyde feeding him his typical spiel. He sank to the floor and put his head in his hands.
He should be happy, the lodgers were working and he didn’t have to worry about having enough presentations for the exhibition, but he just couldn’t get that image of the shameful and horrified looks the lodgers gave him when he’d snapped. He couldn’t let this happen again, he couldn’t bear to think of anyone looking him like that again. He sank to the floor and wallowed there, not looking up from his hands, which he had brought up to his face, curled up against the rigid door.