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poison on the inside, I could be your antidote tonight
Late afternoon was edging into twilight, as Poole picked his way down the garden towards his master’s laboratory, guest in tow.
The sky was shrouded in smog from the nearby steelworks on the Thames belching out their endless streams of smoke, the damp chill of approaching winter creeping into the air. The grass was wilted and yellowing, the paving stones infested with moss, weeds slithering out from between the cracks in their facade.
Drawing up beside the laboratory, Poole turned to the man beside him, dipping his head respectfully.
“Mr Utterson, sir, I must warn you in advance that the doctor may refuse your request to see you. He has not admitted anyone into the house in some time, let alone his laboratory.”
“I understand, Poole,” came the soft, baritone reply. “However, I cannot allow him to refuse to admit me this time. The matter of which I need to discuss with him is of utmost urgency.”
Poole nodded slightly.
“I shall do my best, sir.”
The tall, elderly butler knocked several times upon the door to the old theatre, then straightened his shoulders and spoke in a clear, enunciated tone.
“Apologies for disturbing you, Master Jekyll, but Mr Utterson is here to see you, sir.”
There was a pause, then came a harried reply from within the dingy, windowless structure.
“I’m afraid I cannot admit any visitors at the current time, Poole.”
“It’s urgent business, sir,” Poole replied, his tone erring on softly persuasive.
Another pause, then something akin to a harsh sigh.
“Alright, as long as it can be resolved quickly.”
There was a soft clicking sound, the door being unlocked from within, and Utterson exchanged a quick, courteous glance with Poole.
“Thank you, Poole. Please don’t wait for me. This may take some time.”
If the butler was curious, he was well-trained not to show it, merely dipping his head with a respectful ‘ very good, sir ’, before turning and pattering away back up the ancient path. Utterson turned his attention back to the door and tentatively tried the rusted handle. It slid down and the mechanism clicked, granting admittance to the lawyer.
The heavy door swung open and revealed a large, open theatre. Once crowded with eager eyed students awaiting the precise disembowelment of a body, it was now deathly quiet and filled with swirling dust motes. There were several tables, their surfaces crammed with chemical apparatus; flasks bubbling with mystery liquids, shimmering droplets crawling down the long lengths of condensers, a simmering bunsen burner and discarded tubes encrusted with forgotten mixtures.
In the centre of the room the last of the fading daylight fell through the cupola above, its glass stained with ancient grime. Packing straw was scattered across the cold tiles and a stack of crates was piled up haphazardly in one forlorn corner.
Dr Jekyll stood in the midst of it all, tall, broad-shouldered, the twilight haze filtering down onto his white hair, dappling the few remaining brown streaks. His keen blue eyes were sharp with annoyance, clashing with the heavy bags lying beneath them.
“What is it, Utterson?” He asked, his voice strained. There was none of the warmth usually found in his tone when he spoke to the lawyer. It was clear his friend’s presence was unwelcome here.
“I’ve made it plain to Poole that I’m not accepting visitors at this time.”
Utterson remained in the doorway, hovering, catching the doctor in his focused gaze.
“It’s about your will, Jekyll.”
Immediately, the doctor’s face darkened and his lip curled in distaste. This was the ‘urgent’ matter his friend had bribed his way into the laboratory to discuss? Jekyll felt he had been tricked.
“Utterson, I made it plain that I did not want to speak of that subject again,” he retorted, voice sharp. “My mind is made up and I expect you to respect my legal decisions, as my representative.”
Utterson nodded his head slightly, his face devoid of expression. Perhaps it was a side effect of the drought, but Jekyll found his patience wearing thin more quickly as of late and for some reason, his friend’s lack of emotion irked him. It felt mocking somehow, a display of everything Jekyll had never managed to control about himself.
“I do respect them, Jekyll. I swear, this will be the last time I speak of it, if you will but allow me to enter and stay for a few moments.”
Jekyll hesitated, then sighed in annoyance.
“Very well. I apologise for the mess.” He gestured about him at his chaotic surroundings, then turned his back on the lawyer and made his way over to the desk sitting beneath the cupola. He was quietly seething, but barely managed to mask it beneath a strained tone of cordiality. “I was not expecting visitors.”
“I shall endeavor not to take up any more of your time than is absolutely necessary,” Utterson replied, softly.
Distracted as he was, Jekyll did not hear the soft click of a key turning in the lock before Utterson moved further into the room, folding his hands behind his back.
The doctor slipped behind his desk and leant on the table, some of his initial anger giving way to the ever present fatigue that now seemed to hang over his haggard form.
“Alright,” he asked, tiredly, regarding Utterson over a bubbling flask. “What is it?”
Utterson did not reply at first. His gaze was unwavering, his brown eyes growing darker and blacker as the light outside faded into the encroaching night. Jekyll held his gaze for a few moments, then a prickling in the back of his neck forced him to look away, feeling uncomfortable.
Utterson let out a slow, smooth exhale, then cleared his throat. As it grew darker in the laboratory Jekyll thought about lighting a few oil lamps - the bunsen burner was struggling to light the huge room on its own. The small blue flames were no match for the inky blackness that was beginning to pool in the corners of the theatre.
“As I said once before, I have been learning something of this young Hyde…”
Jekyll’s nails dug into the wood beneath his hands and his tongue grew sharp with irritation.
“ Yes ,” he snapped back at Utterson. “You already made your feelings towards my chosen heir quite plain.”
Utterson did not rise to the jab though, instead regarding Jekyll with a look that bordered on chastising. Something about it made the anger die momentarily in the doctor’s throat and retreat into his gut to curl up and hide.
“Indeed.”
Jekyll huffed through his nose.
“Utterson, I don’t mean to be rude, but please do speak plainly and do so quickly. As I said, I am very busy and did not wish to be interrupted-”
“You know, I’m rather hurt.”
Jekyll was mid-sentence when Utterson cut him off and for a moment his mouth stayed open, the words hanging from his mouth. He snapped his jaw shut and frowned, confused.
“What?”
Utterson’s face, always so devoid of expression, seemed to take on a waxy texture as the light waned, appearing more like a mask than human. His dark eyes continued to glow through the dim light, now glimmering with tiny pricks of bunsen blue.
“I thought you would know that, not only as your lawyer, but as your friend, that anything you confided in me would never pass my lips,” Utterson said, his voice flat. “That I would rather die than speak aloud your secrets to another soul.”
Jekyll did not like this. His friend was behaving in a way that was extraordinarily out of character for him. The impending dark was beginning to play tricks on the doctor’s eyes and he kept seeing creeping shadows slipping in and out of view behind the lawyer opposite him.
The animal inside of Jekyll was also beginning to raise its shaggy head from daylight slumber as the twilight slowly slipped into darkness, the memory of the acrid taste of the potion beginning to burn on his tongue, his flesh starting to cry out in craving. He wanted the lawyer gone.
“For god’s sake,” Jekyll spat, smothering his rising fear with a hefty dose of anger. “Speak sense, man! I do not wish to throw you out of my home, but if you continue to speak in such riddles-!”
“I know who Hyde is, Jekyll.”
Jekyll’s mouth snapped shut. He went cold all over. He could feel the beating of his heart growing faster, thumping harder and harder in his chest and in his throat until it made him feel sick. Utterson couldn't know the truth, surely? No one did .
“ …w-what?”
Utterson took a step closer and Jekyll unconsciously tried to take a step back. His leg hit the chair behind him and his heart raced faster.
“I know why you are so keen to protect him.”
Anger had suddenly deserted Jekyll and fear was quickly filling his entire being. He had to fix this situation, and fast. His lips were trembling as he tried to form the words that might have to save his reputation, his life.
“Utterson, I am unsure of what you think you know, but allow me to set the record straight: I have nothing more than a keen interest in him, that he should have the opportunity to do well in life. There is nothing immoral or nefarious to our arrangement, I-”
“You should really leave your laboratory keys in a more secure place, Jekyll,” Utterson interrupted.
Jekyll faltered. The thoughts that had been rapidly building up into a swirling mess of a hurricane in his brain dissolved and ran away like mercury. The words he had so often rehearsed died on his tongue. He could only look at Utterson in mute shock.
The lawyer’s face grew sharper in the light from the bunsen burner, the shadows around his eyes growing dark, his teeth flashing as he spoke. His voice was quiet, as though he was speaking to a frightened animal, but every word started to fill Jekyll with a suffocating dread.
“It wasn't hard to get a spare pair cut. You’re hardly here nowadays, after all. I’m not surprised you never noticed.”
“Utterson-” Jekyll tried to force out, his voice hoarse.
“I’m not stupid, Jekyll,” the lawyer replied, matter-of-factly. He glanced about the theatre with polite disinterest as he spoke, as though he was giving a well-rehearsed speech and not shattering Jekyll’s entire world with every breath.
“The moment Enfield described the door Hyde disappeared through, I knew that your laboratory was connected. You were so obstinate in the will - I’ve known you for years, Jekyll. The fact you thought I wouldn’t know you were lying is actually rather pathetic.”
Jekyll was gripping the desk so hard now his knuckles were turning red. The blood had drained entirely from his face and under the dim light of the copula he looked paper-white, like a ghost.
Utterson regarded him for a moment, then tilted his head slightly, like a curious dog watching a squirming rabbit.
“At first I thought it was blackmail. I’ve seen it so many times and it bore so many of the hallmarks of it, but you were far too protective of this young man for me to believe you were being manipulated. Of course, many other such arrangements crossed my mind instead... However, when Poole told me you spent much of your time in the laboratory, I felt, call it intuition - I felt I needed to investigate.”
“So you…you broke into my home?” Jekyll whimpered.
“It’s hardly breaking in if I use a key, is it?” Utterson replied, looking faintly bored. “And technically Poole admitted me, so, I reiterate, it was hardly a home invasion.”
Jekyll was dimly aware that he was trembling all over, but his whole world had narrowed down to tunnel vision, containing nothing but the man standing in front of him. The man he had thought of as his closest friend, the man he thought he had known entire.
He had not known him at all. A stranger now stood before Jekyll, wearing a mask of the one he cared for most - and yet, they still shared the same eyes. Dark, brooding, endless - dangerous.
“Of course, I never could have dreamt of what I would find in here,” Utterson said, softly.
Jekyll tried to speak again, but words failed him as Utterson slid his hand into his jacket breast pocket and withdrew a familiar notebook. It was battered and faded from years of use. Jekyll thought he had lost it a few months prior. Bile rose in his throat. He thought he would throw up.
Utterson flicked carelessly through the pages and Jekyll felt as though his very soul was being rifled through. Years worth of his most private experiments, borne to a probing eye without his consent. Utterson glanced up from the pages at him, his dark eyes glittering in the firelight.
“I was surprised at how far back this dates. This has haunted you for many years, hasn’t it?” He paused, then raised a slight eyebrow. “Your ‘profound duplicity of life’?”
Jekyll could barely breathe. Every fibre of his body screamed at him to run, to attack, to do something! But, he was frozen in place like a terrified statue, forced to watch his worst fears come true right before his eyes.
“How much have you seen?” He whispered.
“Everything, I’m sure,” Utterson replied, putting the notebook back in his jacket. “Your cabinet contained a veritable treasure trove of explanations that were long overdue.”
Jekyll forced a surge of vomit back down his throat, fighting to regain his voice. His knees were trembling and he felt quite faint and cold.
“What do you want from me?” He asked, hoarsely. “Is it money? Do you wish to blackmail me?”
For the first time since arriving, a flash of emotion surged across Utterson’s face. His eyes flashed with irritation and his lip curled faintly.
“You truly think I would resort to such abuse?”
“I do not know what you would be capable of now!” Jekyll cried out, his emotions breaking over like a dam bursting. “You broke into my lab, you stole into my most private rooms and rifled through my secrets like a common thief!”
“Everything I did, I did it with your welfare in mind,” Utterson responded, calmly.
Jekyll was breathing heavily, staring at Utterson like a deer with its leg caught in a bear trap, mangled, sat waiting for the killing blow.
His whole life was in Utterson’s hands now. If the lawyer so chose he could be sent to jail for a whole assortment of things - jail if he was lucky, but more likely he would be locked up in an institution. His research would be condemned, years of work destroyed. He would lose everything, his life, his reputation, his access to the outside world.
It was a fate worse than death.
“Please…” He begged helplessly, tears pricking his eyes, shaking, voice cracking. “ Please do not tell anyone.”
“Were you not listening earlier?” Uterson said, the barest trace of annoyance in his voice. “Your secrets will go to the grave with me.”
“What do you want ?” Jekyll pleaded. “What is the point of this interrogation? Do you want to know why I did it?”
Utterson's eyes flashed.
“We both know why you did it.”
Jekyll choked back a sob.
“Then what do you want ?!” He shouted.
Utterson did not reply at first. He simply watched as Jekyll struggled to collect himself, summoning a smattering of courage from deep, shaking breaths.
Then, he calmly reached back into his jacket and withdrew a small bottle of red liquid. Jekyll’s eyes latched onto it, widening in shock.
“What…what are you doing with that? How did you get that?”
Utterson paused, then dipped his hand into a different pocket, withdrawing a wrapper of white powder. Jekyll watched the man’s every move, transfixed by fear. Utterson popped the cork off the bottle and poured the powders in. The crystals slid into the crimson liquid and melted, brightening the colour.
Bubbles rose to the surface and burst up the stem of the glass bottle, popping and fizzing loudly, then abruptly ceasing and dying in the same moment. The red deepened to a dark purple, then faded to a watery green, like healing bruises.
It was a familiar sight. Even through his terror and disbelief at the situation he was in, Jekyll felt a stirring in his gut and the beast within began to rise again, digging up through his insides, letting out a low, mournful howl that made his bones tremble.
Utterson gazed at the steam rising from the bottle, then his eyes slid up to regard Jekyll over the swirling, noxious mist.
“Are you…” Jekyll forced himself to swallow, his throat bone dry, his voice broken and barely audible. “Are you going to drink it?”
“No,” Utterson responded, firmly. Jekyll felt a brief surge of relief at the lawyer’s statement, but it was immediately replaced by dread once more at the strange look that had come into Utterson’s eye.
“ You are.”
Jekyll stared at Utterson.
It was deathly silent in the theatre. The soft grumblings and groans of London could be heard rumbling through the old walls from all around. A nearby pigeon cooed softly. The potion fizzed quietly. The bunsen burner flickered, humming to itself.
“ W-what? ”
“ I don’t feel the need to take this potion,” Utterson continued, raising the bottle up to his eye level, tilting it from side to side to watch the watery green drought slip from side to side, staining the thick glass. “I know who I am. I know what my soul contains, and I am at peace with it.”
He glanced back at Jekyll. There was a trace of pity in his soft brown eyes.
“You, however…”
Jekyll flinched. Utterson lowered the bottle, taking a slow breath over the fumes. His eyes sharpened.
“I want to see what happens when you consume this…potion.”
“Are you mad ?” Jekyll said, his voice cracking with alarm.
Utterson shook his head.
“Quite the opposite. It’s a morbid curiosity, really. I’ve met Hyde, and I know you, have known you for so many years, so it’s only natural that I would want to see the process that divides the two.”
Jekyll shook his head emphatically, raising his hands in surrender, finally understanding what Utterson was saying. His heart was pounding so fast it was dizzying. It felt like there was a fist tightening around his throat. The beast inside was raking its claws down his insides, howling desperately.
“Utterson, please! You don’t want to do this, it’s not something anyone should see! It’s- it’s a horrific process, really, I-”
“Which you only know because you’ve watched it,” Utterson murmured, staring at him intensely. “I saw the cheval glass.”
Jekyll stared at the potion in horror, then moved towards Utterson around the desk. He couldn't let this happen. He would have to take the drought from him by force.
“Utterson, please -”
“ Sit .”
The lawyer’s tone was forceful, commanding. His eyes flashed and the monster quailed in Jekyll’s gut. He sat, obediently, so quickly that for a moment he was confused as to why he was no longer standing.
Utterson gazed down at him, then slowly made his way over to the desk. Jekyll’s eyes were on him as he rounded the table, his heartbeat shaking his chest. His eyes locked with Utterson’s and he felt undone. Like a corpse he now lay beneath Utterson’s gaze, dissected and utterly revealed in his entirety. Every bone, every organ, every sinew, every secret was on show for the lawyer to see, to touch, to feel, to take.
“I’ve read your notes,” Utterson said softly, his deep baritone soothing Jekyll’s trembling anxiety like a balm. The doctor could smell the elixir from here, could feel his body shaking from the power of it, the allure, the breath-taking cravings wracking his soul.
“I know how this potion makes you feel,” his friend continued. Utterson’s hand found its way to Jekyll’s face, sliding down to cup his jaw. Jekyll went limp, his eyes fixated on the bubbling drought. “You’re craving it even now, aren’t you?”
The lawyer’s tone was still soft, but carried an air of chastising, of teasing. Knowing what power Utterson was currently wielding over him was rapidly undoing Jekyll and it took all his willpower not to respond with a mere whimper. He took a shaking breath, his fingers twitching. It was strange - even the monster inside of him had gone suddenly still.
He could take the potion from Utterson by brute force, then as Hyde, ensure the lawyer could never reveal Jekyll’s secret to the world. The thought sent a forbidden thrill racing through him - his inhibitions were weakening quickly from the mere smell of the potion’s vapours. And yet, he remained still, waiting for Utterson to make the next move. The beast looked out through Jekyll’s eyes from within, watching Utterson in turn, salivating, panting, waiting.
Utterson paused, then grabbed the back of Jekyll’s chair with his free hand, lifting one leg and shifting down to straddle the doctor in one fluid movement. Jekyll yelped at the sudden contact, the lawyer’s weight crushing his body down into the chair. Their chests were pressed flush together and Jekyll could feel his rioting heartbeat slamming against Utterson’s calm, measured beat. The lawyer knew exactly what he was doing, knew Jekyll was utterly under his control.
The doctor was breathing fast and hard, verging on panting, staring up at the lawyer with a hundred different emotions ricocheting across his strained face.
Utterson stared back down at him, expression cool and collected, eyes glimmering in the near-darkness that had crept up on them while they had argued, wrapping itself around them like a cloak. He shifted in Jekyll’s lap and his breath grazed the doctor’s forehead.
Jekyll’s senses were already set ablaze by the sheer proximity to the potion, but having Utterson, (the object of his decades-long desires) this damn close to him was bordering on overstimulating. The lawyer’s scent, his warmth, his bulk and breath was smothering the doctor, making his fingers twitch, making it hard to breathe.
Utterson drew back and tilted Jekyll’s chin up between his thumb and forefinger. A thousand indecent images and thoughts charged through Jekyll’s head as he gazed up into the lawyer’s dark eyes. His flesh was hot and throbbing with want, but torn between the potion and the man wielding it. He glimpsed a glint of silver chain and saw the outline of the crucifix that hung round Utterson’s neck, pressing through the fabric of the man’s shirt like a brand.
Utterson pulled Jekyll’s lower jaw down and ran his thumb over his lower teeth, eyes swirling with something dark and unknown. The fumes of the potion were hanging heavily in the air around them, sifting gently into their lungs, altering the chemicals in their brains. Jekyll’s inhibitions had long deserted him now and it was only a lifetime of dedicated self-restraint that was holding the last vestiges of his dignity together.
“I know you want it,” Utterson whispered, running his thumb over Jekyll’s lower lip. Jekyll was trapped in his gaze, trembling, his fingers curled tightly into the tails of Utterson’s jacket, his last anchor to a reality that was growing more warped by the second.
Utterson raised the bottle to Jekyll’s mouth. The fumes crept past his lips, rushing over his tongue. The beast inside let out a deafening howl and Jekyll shut his eyes tight, his breaths becoming increasingly haggard. A moment passed. Jekyll cracked his eyes open slightly and saw Utterson looking down at him, something of a question in his brindle gaze.
Jekyll let out a shuddering breath and gave the man a slight nod, imperceptible to most, but Utterson saw it. The brim of the bottle was brought fully to his lips and Utterson’s free hand slid into the doctor’s hair, gripping it tightly.
“ Drink ,” he commanded, his eyes flashing.
The beast was set free from its fragile prison of flesh. It came out roaring, slamming through the bars as the last of Jekyll’s resistance fell away with the drought down his throat.
As the transformation took hold and Jekyll’s pained grunts quickly merged into agonised screams, his changing body jumped and shook beneath Utterson’s slight frame - bones crunching and shifting, skin melting and reforming as the doctor fell away and his demons took hold.
Utterson looked on from above him, hands gripping the arms of the chair, his eyes glimmering with fascination.
As Jekyll’s anguished howls echoed around the laboratory, shifting into something more animalistic and guttural, something incredibly rare began to happen.
The mask split apart, and Utterson began to smile.