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“I’m not doing this,” he said as he was stepping out of the little man’s side in their mindscape. “I already have a lot of things to do besides trying to fight you.”
“Oh yeah, the dear old doctor has a lot of things to do than have a simple talk with a friend,” the man sneered. “You are no fun, Jekyll.”
Heh, fun. What was he going to know of any of that? The closest definition Hyde ever had of fun was either getting drunk at bars, preparing to get into a tremendous fight afterward, or, if he wasn’t doing that, going to find one of those ladies—or, in most cases, men—of the night.
If the doctor didn’t repent for his sins, he wanted now more than ever, not only because he had given his demon a bit of freedom, but because apparently, the demonic impulses had developed a full personality! And it was all against nature. Hell, it was all against what he intended to do in the first place!
This couldn’t even be right. He had made everything right. He meticulously calculated the ingredients and double-checked everything: every measure, every detail. Then why!? Why did this happen? Why is he—
“HEY, YOU DICKHEAD!”
He turned around to face the gaze of the demon himself, Edward Hyde.
“If you’re not gonna let me make fun of you, you should at least chill down,” he said with frustration in his voice. “It’s kinda annoying when you start spiraling the fuck out.”
And there it was: the secondary effects of the incidental chemical imbalance of the formula, staring at him like it was the most simple things in the world to just ignore what he had done, not only to the doctor’s body, but to the world.
The man still made his mind up nonetheless. Well, if it would be so easy to have his coziness in peace, if it weren’t that he had just attempted to do such a heinous things he did the last time the doctor let him out.
“My God, are you still worried about that experiment?” his devil replied.
“Of course I am.”
“I can understand you might be worried, but still, it’s not like you didn’t even try to stop it.”
“What—No, YOU were the one that put the thought into me, YOU made me want—”
“No, Jekyll! You wanted this. You wanted to drink the potion so you could get away with whatever you wanted! It’s not my fault it turned out like this.”
With a reluctant sigh, he admitted this was, somewhat, to his liking: an honest statement.
Lately, it had been worse for him ever since he let the small man out after everything. It had been some months since he decided to finally start on the project that had been in the back of his mind for over some decades now. It was theoretically impossible, but if his studies in alchemy and the supernatural had worked for something, and if he managed to create the perfect formula, he would be able to fulfill the experiment’s purpose.
And, oh! It did work. All that planning and scheming had borne fruit. Neither of them could believe it. When he first started going out as this mask, things went well in the first days as Hyde, but the more he indulged in his repressed wants, the more he felt like he was drifting away from his original self, like he had started morphing into something different, but still felt like a part of Jekyll. Something darker. As all the darkness within himself had gained consciousness and started getting out of control.
And because of this, he wouldn’t let anyone know about the biggest atrocity he had committed.
But nonetheless, that didn’t justify Hyde to say such things. In any case, he should be the one pleading for mercy to the doctor for still being here and enjoying this kind of madness he went through every night, that he could do it without any guilt...
“I get it, you know.”
The doctor’s train of thought got interrupted as soon as the little gentleman spoke again.
“You never got the chance to enjoy yourself like you wanted, right?”
“I enjoy myself in the little and rather modesty things” the doctor remarked.
“I know, but I don’t mean that, and you know it,” he continued. “I meant about the real reason you did the potion. You knew it didn’t have an innocent or naive end to it, did you? You knew it was rather a desperate attempt at something else?”
Jekyll couldn’t do anything but stare at the damn man.
“Maybe you just needed an excuse of an ‘experiment’ to finally let out everything you’ve hidden throughout your life, or maybe you’re just oblivious to finally accepting it.”
He stopped as he slowly started to approach Jekyll.
“Why can’t you just try to accept the fact that we’re not so different, Henry? That I’m just a part of you.”
He almost sounded as sensitive as Henry as a child, as he looked at him so fondly.
“Because I’m not as savage as you are.”
“But you used to, remember? When we were younger.”
“I’ve changed now. Those days are long gone for me.”
“Really? How much have you changed? To the point that you can’t even have a normal conversation with anyone? That you keep pushing out your friends because you’re a coward?”
“I am just trying to protect them!”
“Protect them how, Henry? By just making them more worried about you and hiding yourself!?”
“No!”
“Then what!?”
“I’m protecting them from myself!” he screamed as he got on his knees.
There was a moment of sole silence in the mindscape as the two men were trying to process everything.
“I’m scared of what will become of us if this is not fixed soon,” continued Jekyll with a small tremble in his voice. “I can’t control myself any longer. Even if I could tell anyone about this, they wouldn’t believe me. I don’t wanna lose them, Hyde. That’s the only good thing that’s left for me.”
“And so what?” replied the other. “Are you just gonna ignore them and repress yourself even more? Ignore Utterson, of all people.”
“Don’t you dare bring him up in this conversation. You know that my position is very painful.”
“Yeah, painful enough for you to tell him your actual feelings.”
The doctor just stayed quiet.
Hyde just sighed.
“Look, Henry, I understand that this might be odd for you, but trying to hide everything from everyone is bad. Repression has not helped us, has it? And if you think of me as someone different from you, then you’re wrong. I’ve always been here, you know? Maybe not like this, of course. You couldn’t pull up looking this hot.”
Jekyll just returned him a death stare.
Hyde chuckled. “What? I’m just being honest, man. But it’s true. I’ve always been a part of you that you always try to overlook. For the simple reason that everyone thinks it is something you should be ashamed of, just because you don’t align with what they say a man should be or not. People really just need an excuse to judge someone just because they look different.”
Jekyll just tried to understand this. Was—was Hyde really trying to comfort him? To try to make him feel less ashamed of everything he had done these past months?
“And I’m not saying that everything I’ve done is okay.”
That caught Jekyll’s attention.
“I’m not.”
Hyde looked away.
“You’re right to be afraid of me. Some of the things I’ve done…”
He paused.
“Yeah. We fucked up.”
A long silence followed.
“But maybe this is your only chance to handle stuff in a less defensive and scared way, in a healthier way, so you could finally see what I’m trying to tell you, to finally accept yourself… and maybe accept me…”
Now it was Jekyll that felt pity for Hyde. Maybe he was right after all, but he still was kind of reluctant.
“I am,” he began. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you before. I guess I just didn’t think of you through another lens. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I don’t accept it.”
“Ugh, really?”
“Buutt, if you promise that you’ll be less bitchy with me, and try to be more open with our dearest Utterson about how you’re feeling, and perhaps I’ll consider it.”
“But—”
“And you try to think of a solution that is actually helping us both rather than just trying to get rid of me.”
“Fine,” the doctor sighed. “I’ll try.”
“Good. Then you shall wake up. It’s almost morning.”
He said this as the mindscape was changing from a dark green to a light blue.
“Very well,” he said as he stood up, cleaning his pants and walking away.
“Oh, and Henry!” Hyde screamed.
The doctor looked back.
“…Thank you, for finally trying to listen,” Hyde said as a small smile formed on his lips.
“No problem.”
That’s the only thing he remembered as he woke up.