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It was always rather quiet around here so late into the night. Hardly anyone used this street, and those who did were either in some sort of hurry or were quite drunk, stumbling to find somewhere at least marginally safer than the square to pass out in. So, Utterson knew a difference in the routine when he heard one.
The sound of boots, expensive boots, no doubt, making their way closer to his watchpost. Whistling, too. Who whistled tunes at this hour? A jaunty, dismal tune to match unhurried but steady footsteps.
It had to be him.
Utterson peeked out to get a look at him, seeing a man of likely average height but stocky build, dressed modernly in a leather jacket and a colored button up with the top two buttons open, revealing nearly translucent skin. Even as the street lights faded, and the brightest remaining lights came from nondescript neon signs and moonlight, it was clear to see that the man had light hair in an almost unnatural shade. And of course, like twin flames, two eerie lights shone from where his eyes should be, yellow and likely much more perceptive than the average belle on her way home or drunkard with crossed vision.
It was definitely him.
Utterson watched as he whistled, then hummed a bit, carrying on, seemingly not an actual song at all but a meandering thing to pass the time. He once unpocketed a key ring with no more than three keys on it, and he twirled it around a finger, chuckling to himself as he caught it mid-spin and replaced it in his jacket’s pocket with a muffled jangling.
He walked ever forwards towards Utterson, not seeming to notice him in his hiding place at all. All the while, dread built in Utterson’s stomach unbidden, fear steadily building without real cause.
Edward Hyde was a single man. He didn’t even seem temperamental or particularly cantankerous at a glance, but still…
As he approached, every instinct told Utterson to run.
He drew closer and closer…
Until he passed Utterson entirely without a glance.
Part of him was anxious to let the man go. Surely he’d be safer that way… He stifled it valiantly. He’d waited far too long already.
It was now or never.
Utterson reached out before he could hesitate, gently tapping the man on the shoulder.
“Uhm, excuse me-”
The blonde quickly whirled to face him with what nearly sounded like a cat’s hiss, grimacing and turning with a flash of gold from beneath his mussed bangs. For a moment, he looked… frightened.
“Jeez! Way to startle a guy out of his skin!” he exclaimed as Utterson shrank back. “What the hell-!”
The frightened look seemed to pass as he looked upon Utterson with a curious look of recognition, and then relief. He sighed, placing a hand over his chest. “It’s just you. Shit, since when are you the type to lurk around alleyways like a creep? Looking to jump me?”
Utterson notes with bewilderment and a subtle unnerved shiver the almost familiar tone the man took with him.
“... What?”
The man looks at him oddly, glowing eyes piercing, and Utterson nearly feels like a cornered rabbit beneath the gaze of a wolf despite having sought him out, not the other way around.
However, instead of opening his maw wide to devour him, as a more primal part of Utterson’s brain so deathly feared, Hyde only smiled and huffed a small laugh, apparently amused. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, leaning down to look Utterson more squarely in the eyes. Somehow, this didn’t seem much better than the threat of being eaten alive.
“Relax, I’m just teasing ya. Always so serious…” He rolled his eyes and stood back straighter, shoulders still slouched. “So! What can I do ya for?”
“U-uhm.” Utterson stuttered, then cleared his throat a bit, collecting himself enough to speak clearly. “Mr. Hyde, I presume?”
“That’s me, dolly.”
Utterson spluttered a bit at the pet name, much to Mr. Hyde’s delight. His grin looked outright predatory in the low light, and Utterson silently cursed that Hyde was rarely seen before sunset.
“With all due respect, I do have a name. A-and it’s not ‘dolly’.”
“Ooh, a name to go with a pretty face? Aren’t you the full package.”
“Utterson.” He enunciated with no shortage of impatience. For some reason, despite knowing him for such a short while, Hyde seemed to fray at his nerves more than perhaps anyone he’d ever met before. “John Gabriel Utterson, though Mr. Utterson is fine.”
“How formal! Don’t tell me you’re into that?”
“I-into-?”
Hyde made a little show of licking across his teeth and top lip, dissolving quickly into ugly snickering with his tongue still peeking out from between too-sharp canines.
“Listen, listen, I’m sorry. I can’t take you so serious when you’re looking at me like that. Can’t help it. It’s nothing personal, just got the biggest thing for pretty boys like you.”
Before Utterson even realized it, Hyde had closed what little space there was between them, those glowing eyes now towering dangerously over him, crowding him into the alley’s wall behind him. Somewhere above them, a neon sign dimly flickered to life, painting Hyde in deep red as his eyes still burned their bright yellow, a scene straight from a horror film in just the colors to match.
So close, he could see every detail to Hyde’s skin… practically poreless. Smooth as glazed ceramic and near just as ashen pale. He wasn’t deformed, really just the opposite, reminiscent of a painted porcelain doll, but Utterson still got the feeling deep in his stomach that there was something very wrong with this man’s countenance just the same, a feeling akin to looking upon something as it spoils and rots.
There seemed to be some imperceptible damning flaw, some malformity that he couldn’t identify but everything inside him knew meant danger. Even beyond the fangs, beyond the glowing eyes (both of which, he reasoned, wouldn’t unnerve him so much on their own), it seemed it was simply Hyde , Hyde and his face. Too smooth, too symmetrical, too… just, wrong. All wrong.
There was simply something very wrong about Edward Hyde.
Hyde brought a hand up to Utterson’s face and the lawyer did his best not to flinch as nails in the shape of claws grazed gently over his cheek like razors, slowly brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. Despite the tenderness of the gesture, Hyde managed to make it feel like a threat.
“You’re shaking.” Hyde murmured, just above a whisper. “Were you looking for me? Hm? … Are you scared now?” He chuckled, low, threatening as a beast’s growl. “Am I more than you bargained for, little fairy?”
Without thinking, Utterson shoved Hyde away, forcibly reestablishing the space between them.
Hyde only laughed as he stumbled back, the cackling painfully loud and rattling in the otherwise silent alleyway. It hardly sounded like a laugh at all, giving Utterson a feeling like hearing a sudden crack of thunder, a startling fear that shocked him bone-deep. “Sorry, sorry! Really, you’re too easy to tease! Can’t help myself!”
And away he laughed, looking to nearly double over.
Utterson bristled less with anger than the distinct sense as though he’d narrowly escaped something wild and bloodthirsty. A near-death experience.
He took a few trembling breaths in an attempt to calm himself, finding he was flushed and sweating as though he’d been running.
“It’s… not funny.”
“Sure, sure, a’course. My bad, love. I’ve probably scared you enough to call us even, huh? My bad if I went a little too far there. Again… you know. Can’t help myself.”
“... Sure.”
Hyde pivoted on one foot to face the street again, shrugging his shoulders back and putting his hands back in his pockets.
“So! If that’s all, I’ll be off-”
“Wait!”
Hyde turned back towards him, raising an eyebrow in apparent surprise. Utterson assumed few bid Hyde to stay, and he couldn’t blame them.
“I didn’t just want to see you,” Utterson started, but was quickly cut off.
“Aw, what?” Hyde grinned once more, turning to again face Utterson completely. “You want something more than that?” He bit his lip, bending forward once more with a distinctly… deviant look on his face. “Mr. sugar-sweet honey wants to wine and dine, hm? Or maybe you’ll prefer to be more direct-”
“Mr. Hyde.”
“What~?” He whined the word like a petulant child, though perhaps thrice as grating, grinning all the while. “I’m joking, I’m joking! Jeez, and here I thought you could take a joke every now and again. You know, I’ll betcha if it were Lanyon saying it, you wouldn’t have half as much of a problem-”
“You know Dr. Lanyon?”
“Huh?” The question seemed to put him off balance, and he took a moment to process it. He blinked, then looked away with a shrug that seemed only nonchalant in name. “Oh, uh. Not personally, of course. I just. Hear things, you know.”
“Do you now?”
“Well sure!” He regained his energy, grinning and gesturing proudly. “I mean, being a friend of Jekyll’s, you must very well know so am I! And oh, he talks about you lot often.”
“Funny, I can say the same of him about you.”
“Oh, does he really?” Hyde made a show of placing his hands over his chest, mock swooning. He didn’t say it as though he didn’t know, but as though this were hilarious. “Well, bless him, I guess he does care.” He snickered. “Well, that’s that cleared up! I’ll be sure to hold it high over his head.”
Utterson fixed him with a skeptical glare. “What? I’m kidding.” A pet phrase of Hyde’s by now. “I know well enough he’s got his eye out for me, despite all my japery, not because of it. And for the record, he’s a very good sport about it.”
“I can’t fathom why… which is why I wished to speak to you in the first place!”
“Hah? Curious about little old me?” His expression softened, but seemed at once more perceptive, looking with such… knowing sympathy that Utterson fought not to squirm. Hyde’s voice seemed softer now, closer to a purr than a growl. “Nah… I know what it is. You’re worried for Jekyll, aren’t you. You’re good to him like that.”
“Well, as his friend- ”
“And his lawyer. Yeah, don’t look at me like that, I know you’ve got obligations to keep.”
“Has he spoken in such detail?”
“What, you think he’d tell me about his oldest most cherished friends and forget to mention that one keeps the fuzz off his back for him? Day in, day out? Just how ungrateful do you think he is?”
Despite the lighthearted tone, Utterson can’t help but take offense to the accusation.
“That’s really not what I meant-”
“Well, then what do you mean, Mister Utterson.”
“I! I mean-!” The sarcastic, purring use of his name flustered him a bit after Hyde’s earlier insistence of so many pet names. He huffed indignantly, much to Hyde’s bemusement. When Utterson bristled now, it was closer to anger, exasperation written plain across his features. “Despite hearing so much about you, I really know next to nothing about you at all! I’d never even heard of you until about a year back when Jekyll had come to me about his will-”
“Oh yeah, that was the first you heard of me, wasn’t it… what, did you think I was blackmailing him?”
“No. I just thought it very odd.”
“Which part? The part that it specifies disappearance over death and doesn’t include me at all in the case of his death?”
“Well. Yes. That is an odd tidbit, and I think I’d like to discuss that further with you at a later date, but rather, simply the fact that I’d never even heard of you before, and then suddenly you appear in Jekyll’s life, and you were so- so… ”
“Close?”
Utterson didn’t like how he said that at all.
“... Yes, close, to him. It just… doesn’t make any sense. And… as strange as you seem, I don’t want to assume the worst, but… by all accounts, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, people can make friends at any time, from anywhere-”
“Not Jekyll. Not that fast.”
“Are you jealous then? Is it jealousy?”
“What? No! He just would have talked of meeting you! Of your budding friendship, of meeting with you, writing you, at least once! I know him, he would, but there was only sudden… bewitchment. ”
Hyde’s incredulousness only grew, his smile faltering.
“Wh- you think I hexed him?”
“No! Well… I don’t know. I just… I want to know how you met, how it’s possible that the Jekyll I know should be so devoted to someone so quickly.”
Hyde paused, seemingly mulling this over.
“... You want to make sure he’s alright, and I’m not pulling any strings I shouldn’t.”
“Precisely.”
Hyde sighed and shook his head, leaning back once more.
“Well aren’t you a busy bee. Tracking me down for dear old Henry just to ask how we met-” Hyde paused, then looked to Utterson, suddenly puzzled. “Actually… how did you track me down? Or, know it was me for that matter?”
“Well, you’re not easy to miss given a description.”
“Sure, yeah, but… who gave you a description? I don’t think we know any of the same people.”
“Well, we both know Jekyll.”
“Yeah?”
“He told me.”
Hyde scoffed, a mirthful little laugh.
“No he didn’t.”
“He did-”
“I didn’t think you’d lie.” He almost looked impressed, but again shook his head, this time in mock disappointment with a click of his tongue. “Jekyll’s never told you so much as my hair color, and there ain’t too many blondes around this half of London even if he did. Which he didn’t.”
“And how on earth would you know that?”
“Ah! Defensive. Guilty. Open and shut case, where’s my lawyer of the year award.”
Utterson didn’t find this very funny.
“Mr. Hyde, is it really of such importance where I should get my information?”
“Listen, you’re suspecting me of magic crimes; I’m suspecting you or somebody you know of stalking me.”
“I’m not stalking you-!”
“Then who is?”
Utterson huffed, folding his arms over his chest. He couldn’t help getting flustered, but he’d try. For the sake of getting to the point sometime tonight.
“For the sake of anonymity and confidentiality, I will not say who. However, I can tell you with a good deal of confidence that he’s hardly stalking you. He simply happened to meet you once, and learned your name during the encounter. Now, unless you call that stalking, I think this is rather ‘open and shut’.”
“Oh.” Hyde seemed to visibly deflate. The defensiveness and heat of his little interrogation had made him stand visibly taller, looming over Utterson, and without that tension, he was back to slouching, looking like your typical casual delinquent searching for a fight… or a shag, of course. Whichever came first, with his type. “Okay, I guess I’ll give you that. I meet too many people around town for me to narrow it down too much from just that, and it’s not like I’m stalking you; I don’t know every guy you’ve talked to in the last… what, month? Few weeks? How long have you been looking for me?”
“About two weeks.”
“Still a lot of time to me, but maybe that’s just me.”
"It was an admittedly long two weeks."
"I’ll bet. You look like shit, no offense. Have you been sleeping alright?"
"What- well! No, not really, but I don't think I look that bad…"
"Sure, maybe on a general scale.” Hyde waved a hand and took a moment to circle around Utterson, apparently examining him from all angles. The feeling of being something very small confronted by a predator twice his size returned with a vengeance. “If someone had never met you before, he'd probably say you look pretty damn good, just because you're a pretty-looking fella, and he wouldn't be technically wrong,” He stopped back in front of Utterson, leaning in close. “But if you know anything about you, then you’d know that well rested and well taken care of, you practically sparkle. Right now in comparison, you look like you haven't caught a single ‘z’ all week."
Utterson resisted the urge to step back, his eyebrows furrowing in apparent confusion.
"But… you've never met me before either."
And at this, Hyde blinked, apparently caught off guard. He stood back up straight, looking away sheepishly.
"Oh. Uh. Yeah, I... Heh. Hear a lot about you, from Jekyll, you know…"
"Mhm… and you're absolutely insistent you aren't stalking me."
"Hey, I'm not! Really, scout's honor and all that. Pinkie promise!" Hyde held out his pinkie finger as though proof of his unwavering honesty. Utterson looked less than impressed, but reluctantly let it be. He did not, however, take Hyde's pinkie, and eventually Hyde dropped his hand with a dismissive wave. “You can ask me anything you wouldn’t think Jekyll’d know, and I won’t be able to do more than guess.”
Utterson raises a single eyebrow, almost astounded that Hyde thought for a moment that would work for him.
“And if you feign ignorance and are simply playing upon your friendship with the doctor?”
“Hey, what kind of guy do you take me for? An actor? Someone who can get a script down, story straight? Huh?” He put his hands on his hips, apparently insulted at the mere insinuation. “Personally, I think if you had me memorize a… what is it, a monologue? Soliloquy? I’d sound so fucking bad, the audience would think I’m some sort of janitor-understudy because the theater sucked that bad and they were just that short staffed."
He held a hand up over his head in what Utterson recognizes almost immediately as a crude impression of Hamlet. "To be, or not to be, says this smug, blonde little nosebleed, and everyone starts wondering about the theater’s refund policy. Which is probably airtight, by the way, because if they had to resort to putting me in the limelight, they’re not looking so hot, even as far as desperate times and desperate measures go." And no, it's not a script, it's not even close to polished, lacking hard wrought theatrical excellence, but Utterson found himself mildly impressed at Mr. Hyde's latent but obvious improvisational talent. But of course, Hyde wasn't finished just yet.
"To die, to sleep, no more, he goes, and people start to weigh the cost of their eyes and ears." Utterson privately feels a bit for this imaginary audience, but there's something more pressing on his mind... Hyde continues still. "Something poignant about heartache, flesh, and dreams, massacred by yours truly and his abhorrent pipes, and taking a poisoned blade to the chest looks more and more appealing by the second-”
“You… know shakespeare?” Utterson finally cuts him off, and to his credit, Hyde doesn't seem very offended about it.
“A‘Course I do. Listen, dense as I look, I did go to school, thank you very much.”
“Where?” comes Utterson's immediate question.
Hyde immediately looked to pale, or at least as much as one with such an already colorless face can, realizing his mistake. He then quickly flushed, looking flustered. Scrambling, he attempted to regain his earlier composure, albeit more contrarian now than ever.
“I! don’t have to tell you! Jeez, what are you writing a book or something? Biography about local coffee-barflies? If I didn’t already know where you work, I’d think you were some sort a' copper!”
“Well, it’s an innocent enough question, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s still not one I’m answering.”
Hyde folded his arms resolutely over his chest, sticking his chin up in apparent defiance, and Utterson got the feeling that this was all he’d get on the topic.
“So, if you’re done grilling me for all I’m worth,” Hyde continued with a huff, “I was headed someplace.”
“Home?”
“Yeah- I mean. No, not really.” Another flustered slip. He was making a lot of those, wasn’t he. Utterson couldn’t help feeling a bit of pride for it. “My place is on the other side of town, actually. I’m headed to Jekyll’s.”
“To Jekyll’s?”
“Yeah, got some stuff to get to him, orders to fill, errand-boy duty, you know. Has me run around so his ducklings get a break every now and again, ya know? And ain’t that what friends are for?”
“Well, may I accompany you then?”
“What? No way! Do you know what time it is? You should be at home, sleeping, not coming in for a spot o’ tea.” He enunciated the last bit with over exaggerated poshness... or at least, a poor impression of it, sounding far more cockney than received.
“Well, I’m obviously not sleeping, and neither are you. I might as well have a sit with the both of you if he’ll be expecting you-”
“You can’t.” Hyde cut him off with alarming urgency.
“... And why not?”
“He’s, uh. Not at home right now.”
“Mhm...”
“Went on a short little business trip, town over, client- or, colleague? I forget which, but visiting somebody, real fast. Should be back in a bit, but it’s hard to fit us both under the same roof with our schedules running practically parallel, can hardly have tea ourselves most times…”
"Then how are you expected to fill his orders?"
"Ah, notes! Leaves me a shopping list on the counter. I just let myself right on in, ya know? Snatch up the list, fill it by the time he's back, and hey, bob's your uncle, money in my hand. Negative perspiration."
“... And, when will he be back?”
“Well, not tonight, that’s for damn sure!" he huffs indignantly. "Check back in a day or two, sure he’ll be delighted to hear you’ve been harassing me for a full half-hour on his behalf.”
Utterson took a moment to take this in. Hyde was being… awfully dodgy about a few things that simply didn’t make much sense for any man of good standing to be avoidant about.
Where he went to school, how he knew Jekyll, how he'd recognize with such ease details about Utterson that only years of friendship may allow someone to discern. Even the fact that Jekyll was out of town tonight sounded like a lie. At very least, Hyde seemed confident that Jekyll would 'return' shortly, so there was little reason to suspect foul play as it stood, but… why wouldn't Hyde want to meet with the both of them at once? Was Jekyll in all actuality at home, but preoccupied with something he didn't want Utterson seeing?
Well… that didn't make much sense. Utterson wasn't a doctor like him or Lanyon. Even if Jekyll was experimenting with something particularly dangerous, Jekyll primarily worked with medicine, chemicals, and abstract mathematics. Utterson really wouldn't understand it enough to find issue with it. It all looked around the same degree of complex and potentially dangerous to him.
Perhaps Jekyll was hurt, but being stubborn about it. This seemed somewhat more likely, after all. As a doctor, even before he'd received full certification, Jekyll had always been incredibly reluctant to let anyone treat even nastier injuries, insistent that he was training to practice medicine; he should handle it on his own. But this didn't completely satisfy Utterson either. A recovery period of one or two days didn't really line up with an injury that would dissuade company. Unless he'd been hurt for a while before? But then he'd already be recovered enough to see someone by now… Utterson thought briefly to ask to see this supposed shopping list, if it existed at all. But what would it prove if Hyde didn't have it? That he'd left it where he left it where he'd obviously be returning anyways? But really, when would Jekyll have the time to send Hyde a note if he was supposedly unavailable to see tonight...?
All in all, Utterson couldn't really puzzle Hyde's obstinacy out, nor his story. The more he stood and stared at the man, the more confusing he seemed.
And… confused, for that matter.
Uncomfortable even.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Hyde grumbled, breaking the brief silence between them.
“Sorry?”
“I dunno, you were just staring at me funny. Do I have something on my face?”
“N-no, nothing.”
“Alright-y…”
Utterson paused for a moment longer, then sighed.
“I’m simply still unsatisfied.”
Hyde threw him a lecherous grin.
“Well, I could fix that-”
“With your explanation! Or, rather, lack thereof. You still make absolutely no sense to me in general, I’m afraid, but you still haven’t told me how on earth it is you know Jekyll.”
“Eh… I don’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people, I’m afraid, but as for how we met, if I tell you, could I please get on with my night? I’m afraid I won’t get to Jekyll’s by sunrise if you keep me any longer.”
“... Why sunrise?”
“Well, because see, Jekyll’s duckies are a mite fainthearted a bunch. Though who can blame ‘em with a mug like mine? Anyone with a death-wish-free conscience sees something with glowing yellow eyes in the house at night, you’d think maybe something’s come to spirit the poor master away, and you’re sure to be next. You’d take off running and screaming if you don’t outright faint! And I’d rather not scare people to an early grave if I can help it, thanks.”
Well… that wasn’t too unreasonable, actually. Even knowing exactly who Hyde was, Utterson found himself quite startled a good number of times throughout their meeting. Sure, Jekyll’s servants could be quite hardy when it came to taking care of Jekyll’s whims and estate both, but Hyde was a different beast. He couldn’t say Hyde’s wariness of that was without cause.
Utterson sighed, resigning himself to Hyde's terms.
“I’m very sorry to keep you then. I wouldn’t want the staff troubled for my sake either.”
“Good to hear you’ve got your head on right. I’d begun to doubt it.”
“So, make your explanation as quick as possible.”
“Sure.” Hyde shrugged, nonchalant manner returning as he began. “It’s just like Jekyll probably told you; we met on his way to work. Random encounter. I was interested in him, we struck up a conversation, and we hit it off real well. I was looking for work, so he took me on as his glorified errand boy, or assistant for short. Pretty simple.”
Well, that did match what Jekyll had told him. They met by chance, Hyde seemed an odd but fascinating individual, and Jekyll took the opportunity to hire him practically on the spot.
“When?”
“When?” Hyde echoed. “Ah, well… it must’ve been around April. Round my birthday.”
That seemed right too. He hadn’t heard anything about Hyde before then. Jekyll had consulted him about his will shortly before the beginning of May.
“And your birthday?”
“The 18th. What, gonna plan me a surprise party? Oh. Well, not much of a surprise now.”
“Just making sure I have this correct… Jekyll edited you into his will not more than two weeks after meeting you?”
“Hey, what can I say? Guess it comes with the ‘assistant’ thing. If the guy’s been kidnapped, hand things over to the right hand man. Could come back, needs his stuff in order. That’s my job. But if he’s dead, fuck it, just pass his stuff around. I’m out of a job, so I don’t need anythin’ then.”
“Hm… it still seems like an awful lot of trust in a practical stranger…”
“Well, you can take that up with him. I’ve gotta be home- er. At Jekyll’s home. Alright?” Hyde smiled, flashing his fangs in the neon glow with a casual two-fingered salute. “If that’s everything, then, ah-hah… Be seein' ya, dolly.”
With that, Hyde finally turned to go, taking off down the street with a quickness that quite surprised Utterson before the lawyer could think of further word to stop him.
Hyde quickly vanished from sight, turning a sharp corner and leaving Utterson alone in the silent alleyway once more as though their encounter had never happened at all.
Utterson frowned.
Even after all that, he couldn’t say he quite understood Edward Hyde, let alone quite trusted him.
After all that was said and done, all he could say for sure is that Hyde was odd. He could have surmised as much even before meeting him, but he felt surer of that at least more than ever.
He was odd… and undoubtedly hiding something. What it was though, Utterson couldn’t yet guess.
He turned to head home, resigning himself to the inevitably fitful sleep that awaited him.