Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

That morning, Lavender awoke like any other day and quickly got ready to begin her work. Unlike other days, she had a feeling that it would be an uneventful and peaceful day. She would quickly and repeatedly be proven wrong in the following hours and that fact would be cemented in the following days.

-------

"Lavender! Do you know where that specimen from Blackfog wound up? I could've sworn I left it right here," Cantilupe called to Lavender, as the younger woman entered their shared lab. The older woman is at one of the work benches, checking underneath.

"I can't say that I do," she replied, "What type of specimen was it?"

"It was marked by the vendor as a 'fear entity', I was hoping we could've looked at it today." Lavender could hear the contempt in Cantilupe's voice towards the horrifically undescriptive name.

Cantilupe continues, "It was in a black, urn-ish spirit vessel, about yea tall," gesturing with her hands around ten centimeters apart before resuming her search.

Lavender briskly walks across the lab, scanning the bookshelves and other workbenches for an object of that description, when she spots something shiny peeking out from under a bookshelf. The Junior Extremofaunic Zoologist calls to her Senior, "I think I found it!" But, as she leans down and grabs the smooth surface of the container, Cantilupe exclaimed, "Be careful, it's a bit..!"

The object jumps in Lavender's hands and proceeds to fall back to the floor with a loud clatter, sending the cork across the lab.

"...slippery..."

They both watch helplessly as a deep red fog darts out of the bottle and straight out the lab's door.

They glance at each other, both unsure of what to say or how to proceed, but using the great amount of knowledge she has gained in all of her years of studying Extremofaunic Zoology, Cantilupe speaks,

"That's not good."

-------

Where did they even go from here?

"How much information did that vendor give you anyway? No ordinary spirit can affect a spirit vessel like that, right?"

"Well, many things can be contained in vessels such as that one," Cantilupe gestures to the previously dropped container, "so, eliminating common spirits, the creature we are looking for could range from a particularly strong poltergeist to a lesser demon."

"As for what the vendor told me, the entity was captured north of here in a small town, tormenting the people one by one with awful nightmares at night and horrific visions during the day," she continued, "apparently killing those affected once the creature consumed enough fear."

Lavender grimaced and began writing in a small notepad, listing what they knew so far:

Unidentified Entity

1. Powerful enough to escape common spirit vessels

2. Dark red in color, with wispy appearance - does not appear to have a solid form

3. Causes nightmares and hallucinations in those affected

4. Consumes human fear - possibly feeds on other emotions

5. Kills victim once finished feeding

"We probably could eliminate poltergeists, fairies, and demons, as they don't usually kill humans and feed on emotion, correct?" Lavender asks.

"That you are correct Ms. Lavender... This is a very unusual case and it only seems to be getting further and further from our area of expertise," Cantilupe pauses, seemingly to consider their next course of action. "I suggest that we take this to Dr. Maijabi and see if he's seen anything like it before. Go ahead and grab the vessel, we're going to pay him a visit."

Before Lavender could respond or grab the vessel, Cantilupe was already out the door.

-------

It searches the halls looking for tormenting souls.

In many rooms, there are souls with previous fears of imprisonment and persecution by crowds with torches and pitchforks, in one a soul recalls a more recent experience with those fearful of the unknown.

Going further it finds a soul tormented with a constant reminder of the death of a loved one. It seems to be accepting this reminder and learning to separate the two.

Upwards it goes, finding two souls, one holding guilt for being the indirect cause of many deaths but having come to terms with it, the other, stranger soul does not hold guilt for being the direct cause of many deaths.

It continues on, these are not what it wants.

It attempts to leave the building it is in, but it cannot, seemingly due to some type of sigil carved into the very foundation of the building.

It continues its search of the building.

It finds a room filled with many other spirits and a soul who appears to notice it. It moves on.

It continues onto another room, finding two souls. One is intriguing, it is wrong.

The first, normal soul seems to fear persecution but in a much different way than the others, seeming for feelings towards the other soul in the room.

The second, odd soul could barely be considered one soul, more like two souls put together or one soul forced apart. It seems aware of its condition and fears the discovery of it, actively scared. It's scared of disappointing the other souls in the building, scared of losing their home, scared of the harm that would come to those other souls. It's scared of what the souls around it would think of its condition.

The smaller part of the soul does not seem to care for these things, but instead the loss of its freedom.

Perfect.

-------

In Dr. Jekyll's office, there are two men doing paperwork, one being Dr. Jekyll himself, the other being the co-founder of the society, Robert Lanyon. Henry gets a sudden chill and ignores it, but someone does notice.

"Um, Henry? I think something is wrong with your.. dog." Robert is, of course, referring to Zosimos, Henry's Church Grimm, a creature with the notable ability to see spirits and other entities outside of human view.

"Do you see something Zosi?" Henry asks, under the impression that Zosi is just looking at Hyde as he often does, until he looks.

Zosi is growling at him, or at least in his general direction.

"That's odd, he never growls at me."

"Does he have rabies?"

"Robert, Church Grimms can't get rabies."

Chapter Text

That morning, Dr. Henry Jekyll awoke like any other day, and wanted to go right back to bed. He would never feel clean ever again, especially after trudging back to the Society, wearing clothes two sizes too small, covered in sewer water, all while being harassed by imaginary mind demons. What is his life?

He rolls over, staring at the ceiling of the spare bedroom he totally doesn't sleep in.

An eye looks back at him.

Okay, fine, he’s getting up.  

“Hyde? We need to talk about last night.”

No response.
“Edward?”

“I can hear you sulking.” There was an odd shuffling coming from inside the closet, Jekyll could see fluffy blonde hair peeking out occasionally.

“...”

“Please come out, I’m sorry about last night.”

The (not) sulking Hyde appeared in the doorway, “Good, what do you want?”

Henry sighs, he and Edward both know how stubborn he is—how stubborn they are—but he needs to get over it and clear the air between them.

“Firstly, I need to apologize to you for pinning the fire on you, although we both know it was an accident. No matter how poor of an idea it is to drop wood onto a man holding a flamethrower.” 

Hyde scoffs, loudly in order to illustrate how offended he is. 

“Secondly, I want to apologize for threatening to not let you out at all for the next few weeks, you are basically your own person now and deserve to have freedom.” Hyde comes further into the actual room, with a look of suspicion on his face.

“And lastly, we need to stop fighting like this, ripping control from each other, we’re only hurting ourselves.” 

Hyde seems oddly passive at this request, probably because Queen Lucy humiliated him and brutally murdered his ego—in front of Rachel and Lanyon no less.

“Why are you doing this, what do you have to gain?”

“Nothing.” Henry pauses to rethink his answer, “Peace of mind? I don’t know, but I do know that we’re both going to end up hurt if we don’t come to some type of agreement.”

“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“Okay.. The main rule I have is that, while I will be letting you out regularly and for longer periods of time, until the police stop searching, or we clear your name, you need to stay inside of the Society…”

-------

The next few days pass uneventfully for Jekyll. 

As it turns out, sleeping a healthy amount actually helps prevent hallucinations.

The Lodgers are still giving him grief over his being a fake scientist and the Exhibition, but at least they haven't caused any major incidents. It seems that the fanatical obsession with Frankenstein is fading, at least with some of the more reasonable lodgers.

Frankenstein is still uncooperative with her treatment, but has seemingly mellowed out after Hyde's outburst. (Henry suspects that she is waiting for him to have another episode, waiting to pick him apart like some lab rat.)

He should probably apologize for what he said about Elizabeth.

He and Hyde have begun rebuilding their friendship and, while it is tense right now, it is definitely improving. (Is it a friendship if you share the same body and are practically the same person?)

Hyde is happy enough with their new arrangement, despite the fact that he can't do his usual pub crawls. Edward has found different activities to preoccupy himself with, such as hanging out with the Lodgers, harassing Rachel while she's cooking, and, surprisingly, taking naps. (He told Rachel he was brooding, evilly, the Spirit of London at Night doesn't take naps.)

Rachel and Robert seem happy that he's sleeping more and Rachel is definitely glad that Edward is back at the Society. Even if it means that Edward is back to stealing her desserts.

This normality passes just as quickly as it came.

Jekyll is so done with everything.

-------

“I have a feeling that you two need some assistance with a rogue spirit?” Maijabi asks the two, out of breath women.

“Correct, you are Dr. Maijabi, and we need to find it, soon!” Cantilupe exclaims

“Well then have a seat and tell me what you know.”

They all get settled at a non-floating table with tea served from a mostly stationary teapot. Cantilupe starts.

“A couple nights ago, I went to the Blackfog Bazaar for some supplies for Lavender and I’s lab, but when I was about to leave, I noticed a stand selling ‘Eldritch and Mundane Horrors.’ Most of the stuff there was normal, Necronomicons, summoning ritual guides, and such, but the spirit vessel stood out to me. It was just marked as a ‘fear entity’ and the vendor didn’t seem to know much about it. She told me that it came from up north, caused nightmares and hallucinations, and then killed whoever it was haunting, presumably after consuming enough fear. And then this morning, it moved its vessel, causing Ms. Lavender to drop it, giving it a chance to escape.”

Lavender looked down at her teacup, slightly flustered. She noticed that the teapot was making an escape from the table.

Maijabi took a sip of his tea, deep in thought. “I know of a creature that is similar in nature, but I hope I'm wrong in my identification over the alternative.”

Something in his visible, piercing eye told Lavender that he knew he was right. There’s something dreadful twisting her stomach into knots. What monster has she just released upon her friends and colleagues?

Cantilupe seemed to be getting nervous as well, with a faint sheen of sweat on her face and hands.

Cantilupe prepares herself, “How bad is it?”

“It will be fine, as long as we find whoever it chose as a host. Thankfully, it couldn’t have gone far, Dr. Jekyll helped me set up some rather strong wards around the building when I came to the Society.”

“That’s good.”

Maijabi continues, “These creatures are poorly documented and in my understanding do not have names, out of fear that saying its name would summon them. They are literal embodiments of fear, born out of instances of mass human suffering, like wars and plagues. They usually would dissipate after feeding on the people in the area, such as the small town, but since someone captured it, it seems to have lingered.”

“Luckily, it will be easy to banish it, once we find who it is affecting.”

“What should we be looking for?” Lavender asks. This is sounding too easy, considering that ominous look Maijabi had about him earlier.

“Well, the symptoms begin around the time the host is chosen. It begins with incredibly minor hallucinations and when the host goes to sleep, they will be affected by worse than usual nightmares. It progresses slowly, the spirit will begin to use their fears against them, the nightmares will become much worse and the hallucinations will become extreme. This can be difficult to diagnose if the host already has bad nightmares or suffers from hallucinations. After that, death is usually soon to come.”

“The problem is, I can’t detect these entities at all once they begin feeding, even with the spirit eye. We will have to find the creature the old fashioned way.”

“...and how long exactly do we have to find it and banish it?” Lavender was quickly getting nervous again.

“Around ten days.”

Chapter Text

Henry is asleep. At least he thinks he's asleep, it's a bit hard to tell whether he's dreaming or not, especially if he actually is dreaming.

He's in his office, every surface is absolutely covered in stacks of paperwork that reach up to the infinitely high ceiling. Every paper he grabs demands payment, overdue stamped in his blood. He gets up from his seat and tries to get to the door. Why are the handles gone? He looks up once again, the endless stacks of paper are falling, collapsing like stone towers rather than paper.

He knows it will crush him. He can't tell whether he's unable to move or if he just can't bring himself to try and avoid the inevitable. He swears the red, handle-less doors are mocking him. Tons upon tons of paperwork, and the doors decide to not have handles anymore. 

Stupid, stupid doors.

It doesn't matter for long, as the paper's weight makes the floor shatter like glass under his feet. 

He falls for an eternity and for no time at all, feeling weightless and heavier than lead.

-------

Jekyll wakes up two hours earlier than usual, with his pajama pants scrunched up above his knees, his shirt attempting to strangle him, and his entire body covered in a cold sweat.

Maybe he needs to admit that the Exhibition is stressing him out.

Maybe he should go back to bed. But there was something unnerving about that dream, it felt like… something was coming, impending doom.

He decides to get a head start on a long day of paperwork.

-------

Rachel comes to check on Henry around eight o’ clock while he is working on the Lodger’s procurement reports (He gives them allowances for lab equipment and supplies). She makes a face seeing the poorly lit room.

“Dr. Jay, please don't tell me you’ve been up all night doing paperwork. Again.”

“Nothing like that, I just woke up early and couldn’t get back to bed.”

“Well, breakfast is ready if you want to come down.”

“I’ll probably come down soon.”

(They both know he'll forget to.)

The Day Manager is about to leave, when Henry calls out to her. 

“By the way, you probably don’t want to let Mr. Doddle into your kitchen.”

“Why do you say that?”

“According to his report, he has apparently bought a few kilograms of gunpowder.”

“Great,” she mumbles, as she slips out the door. Doddle has blown up the kitchen before and she didn’t plan on letting him do it again.

She then turns back around, “I think Lanyon is here, so you might want to change,” she leaves again, closing the doors behind her.

“What?” 

Oh, he was still wearing his pajamas.

How on earth did he forget his clothes?

He really needs to do something about this stress.

He drags his hands down his face, only to see a pair of green eyes inches away from his own, once he removes his hands.

Hyde, who hadn’t said anything up to that point, burst out laughing, “God! Your face! How do you forget that?”

He really needs to do something about this cackling man child.

He grabs a suit from his and Hyde's stash of spares.

-------

Unbeknownst to Henry, in one of the Society’s common rooms, Cantilupe, Lavender, and Maijabi were gathering Lodgers for an impromptu assembly.

Once everyone was settled, Cantilupe began.

“Does anyone know where Jekyll is?”

Griffin speaks up, “I saw him at like three AM going to his office, he’s probably still there.” 

Ito then asks, “What on earth was Jekyll doing here at three AM?”

“Hell if I know, I guess he stays the night since he was in his jim-jams.”

“I don't think I've ever seen that man without a suit on.”

“I feel like we should get back on topic,” Lavender says, effectively silencing the Lodgers (mostly).

“And has anyone seen Dr. Lanyon?”

Jasper speaks up, “I think I saw Dr. Lanyon going towards the office as well.”

“That means we can start. Yesterday morning, in my and Ms. Lavender's lab there was a slight incident, leading to the release of a dangerous spirit-,” Cantilupe is cut off by multiple gasps (drama queens), “It's not dangerous now, but we need to find it before it does hurt someone.”

“What are we looking for?”

“How is it dangerous?”

The questions have begun and the Lodgers are known for being curious, Lavender sighs, this was going to take forever.

-------

“I'm all for mood lighting, Henry, but this cannot be healthy for your eyes,” Robert says, referring to the singular candle Henry is using to light his desk. 

Henry watches as Robert goes to each window, throwing the curtains open dramatically as he seems to do everyday. 

(He does it to try and cheer Jekyll up. It works, if Henry's hidden grin is anything to go by.)

“What's on the docket today?”

“Paperwork.”

Lanyon groans — but then he remembers his favorite socially acceptable pass-time.

“I'm opening a bottle of cabernet.”

-------

There were almost thirty minutes of non-stop questions. They went over everything at least three times. Go see Maijabi if you experience any symptoms, don't tell Lanyon or Jekyll unless absolutely necessary. Lavender was going to pull her hair out.

She notices that the newest Lodger is coming towards her.

“Um, I'm sorry to bother you, but why can't we tell Dr. Jekyll?”

“It's a bit complicated, but most of the Lodgers are a bit mad at him, over, ya’ know, the whole fake science thing with Frankenstein. Anyways it seems to be the consensus, to fix it on our own without him and Lanyon ever knowing it happened.” 

She didn't really understand the Frankenstein obsession anyway, most if not all of them have seen Jekyll doing real science.

“But what would happen if Dr. Jekyll or Dr. Lanyon was chosen as the host?”

“I think they would at least say something about the symptoms, there's a lot of things here that could cause similar issues if messed with.”

“And, Jasper, if you're still worried in a day or two, I'll ask them if they've had any odd symptoms, we could even come up with a cause for the symptoms.”

That seemed to make Jasper less anxious at least.

“Thanks, Miss Lavender, I was just worried that we might forget to check on someone.”

Chapter Text

He and Robert have been working on paperwork for at least three hours now. Henry isn’t sure if it’s better or worse than the days they have social events scheduled back to back. 

Hyde retreated into the mindscape only twenty minutes in, apparently tired of making rude gestures and trying to make Jekyll choke on his wine.

As he goes to take a sip of his wine, he smells something odd, he stops writing and sits down the glass. It smells like iron. Is that blood? He moves to ask Lanyon if he has noticed it, but stops after looking down.

His glass is still filled with a dark red liquid, but he doesn’t believe that wine coagulates. Why is there blood? He feels like gagging, how long has it been like that? Did he drink it? 

He has to calm down and think logically.

Lanyon most definitely would have said something if it was blood. Henry would have tasted it if it was blood.

So obviously he's just imagining the blood and everything is absolutely fine. He pushes the glass just outside of his view.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

-------

Jekyll has been glancing at him every few minutes for the past hour. At first, Lanyon thought he was making sure he wasn't slacking off, but after the tenth glance, he noticed something odd about his expression. 

It was like Henry was looking through him or at something he couldn't see. It reminded him of college and that ‘maggot-faced dog’ or in his mother's garden with an invisible Moreau. Lanyon thought he was getting better.

Something is nudging at his foot. He almost kicks whatever it is, god only knows how many venomous creatures are in this building. But he remembers that Zosi was in the room. 

He looks under the desk. 

Two beady red eyes stare back at him. 

It's Zosimos. He's looking at Jekyll, pointing like he's some kind of hunting dog. Jekyll did say Church Grimms are very intelligent.

Zosi whines at Robert, but unfortunately he doesn't understand. Lanyon thinks that Zosi might also be concerned about Henry's health.

-------

Robert doesn't seem to notice that he's drenched in blood.

Soon after moving the wine glass, Henry noticed a dark stain quickly spreading from under his office doors.

The smell of blood only got stronger until he could almost taste it. The dark fluid continued to flow under the door, slowly rising. He tried to continue working but it eventually covered the top of the desk. He couldn't help but notice that the blood was warm, like it was fresh. He knows it isn't real. The blood wouldn't be warm, it wouldn't be able to rise like it is. He considers holding his breath as it begins to lap at his neck, but Robert can't see it and he would definitely be confused. In order to avoid any uncomfortable conversations, Henry continues to ignore it. The blood rises further until Jekyll is sure it's at the ceiling.

It feels like he's suffocating but he's still breathing.

There is undoubtedly a reasonable explanation for all of this.

-------

Hyde is easily having the worst day of his two year long life.

He went down into the mindscape at least three hours ago. Every minute has been a living hell. For one, the nightmare creatures seem to have abandoned their domain and are around literally every corner. Two, they’re a thousand times more aggressive than when he was messing with them.

He ducks into some type of closet and watches the creature chasing him pass by. He goes to turn around and bumps into something. He jumps, whipping around to see not-Lanyon, “What the hell are you doing in a closet!?” “And what happened to your face!?”

“Well, I’m hiding from those creatures, same as you,” the Gentleman says.

“And this is your doing,” he points at his missing, abyssal face.

“Gah, whatever, of course this is all my fault, somehow.” 

“You-” Hyde puts his hand up. He didn’t know you could look offended without a face.

“I don’t care, what’s wrong with them?” He points at the agitated monsters through the cracked door.

“I’m not sure, but we all felt something odd yesterday, like an invasion from outside of the mindscape, something foreign forcing its way in.”

“Great, amazing, are you saying there’s something in here, with us!?” Hyde screeched.

The Gentleman doesn’t reply.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think it heard us.”

Hyde turns back to the crack in the door, there’s something with too many eyes, too many teeth. He can feel wet, hot breath beating against his skin. Suddenly not-Lanyon yanks him away from the door and shoves him towards another door that Hyde didn’t notice, he looks at him in confusion. The Gentleman is pushing the other door closed, or at least trying.

“Dear God, man, run! You’re the only one that can warn Jekyll!”

The door is ripped open and Hyde runs, faster than he ever has in his life.

-------

What Jasper said has been bothering Lavender.

Nobody has come forward with any of the symptoms.

It has almost been a full day since a host was chosen and based on Maijabi’s studies on the progression of symptoms, whoever is the host should already be experiencing hallucinations.

The first and second days involve mild nightmares and hallucinations of varying degrees.

The third and fourth days involve sleep paralysis and severe hallucinations.

The fifth and sixth days, paranoia sets in and perception of reality is altered severely.

In the last four days, all symptoms progress in severity until death.

Would Jekyll or Lanyon really be too proud to reveal any symptoms of mental illness?

Would they value their and the Society’s reputation over their lives?

Would they rather die in silence than be seen as ‘crazy’?

They wouldn’t.

They wouldn't, right?

Right?

-------

Cantilupe proposed making a list of people who are definitely not the host, they’re planning on starting tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Around mid-afternoon, Lanyon put his foot down and made Jekyll take a break, citing, “You look like you're about to keel over,” as his reason.

“Go get something to eat and do something, anything, that isn't work,” Robert says, sounding exasperated.

So, Jekyll begins his walk towards the kitchen, trudging miserably and while trying to avoid the Lodgers. He'd never hear the end of it if they did. Although, looking at the lodgers, through all the returning nightmare creatures, they seemed nervous and a bit sketchy. What on earth could they be nervous about? They probably did something stupid, like blowing up a common room, and are trying to hide it. He doesn't ask, he doesn't want to deal with that right now. Robert told him not to work anyways. He continues his trek.

When he gets to the kitchen, it appears that Rachel is working on preparing dinner. She seems just as surprised as him to see him there during an actual mealtime.

“What are you doing here?”

“Robert kicked me out of my office.”

“I'm making beef stew for dinner, would you like some? While you're kicked out of your office?”

“That's very kind of you, Ms. Rachel.”

Rachel briefly wonders if Jekyll forgot that he hired her to cook food.

“You can hang out here if you want to, I always do enjoy the company.”

Jekyll takes the invitation, sitting on one of the many mismatched chairs in the kitchen.

“So, why did Robert kick you out?” She asks as she continues chopping the stew meat, a mischievous glint in her eye makes Jekyll think that she already knows.

“He is utterly convinced that I’m overworking myself,” he says as though Robert is being ridiculous.

She stops cubing the meat to give Jekyll a hard look. He shrinks a bit under her gaze, but doesn’t stand down, even as she begins lifting the large, bloody butcher knife threateningly. Luckily, Jasper chose that moment to enter the kitchen. Jekyll gives a sigh of relief and wipes his sweaty palms on his pants. Jasper also seems confused to see him, but there’s something else that Jekyll can’t quite decipher.

“Oh! Dr. Jekyll? You’re never in the kitchen.” Is it really that hard to believe that he came to get some food?

“I know, right? It’s like spotting a cryptid.” He’s right here, actually. He crosses his arms and fixes Rachel with an unimpressed face.

“I do eat sometimes, you know?”

“Hardly enough for a man your height.”

“Ms Pidgley, this is hardly an appropriate topic of conversation.” Rachel seems to notice his growing agitation and stops with the teasing. She instead turns her attention to Jasper.

Jekyll decides to turn his attention to the window, where some goliath beast is peering in with a twitching, bloodshot eye. His heart rate picks up and he reminds himself that it isn't real. Turning towards the doorway, it appears to lead into some type of mental asylum, rather than the main entrance. He almost looked away, but he noticed something unusual. The non-descript patients from Lanyon Hall have morphed into the familiar faces of his Lodgers. His heart is beating in his ears and it feels like he's not getting enough air.

He didn’t realize the nightmare creatures could change.

He puts his head in his hands and wishes that all of this would just stop.

-------

Rachel gets through the next few steps and starts cooking the stew before she notices Dr. Jekyll. Jasper must also notice when Rachel stops talking. Henry is still in the chair, but now he’s slouched over with his elbows on his knees and his hands gripping his hair roughly.

Jasper opens his mouth, planning on asking if Jekyll is okay, but Rachel quickly stops him. 

“Is he okay?” Jasper whispers to her, looking somewhere between concerned and confused.

“He will be, but can you get Dr. Lanyon for me? He’s probably still in Jekyll’s office,” She whispers back.

“I will," he says, the worry not leaving his face.

“Thank you, Jasper,” she says, grateful that he didn’t press for details.

She watches him leave.

She hopes this isn’t going to be like two years ago.

-------

By the time Robert gets down to the kitchen, Rachel seems to have convinced Henry to eat some stew. She seems deep in thought.

He pulls Rachel further out of Henry’s earshot.

“What’s up?” he whispers.

“I’m not sure, he was acting fine when he came down earlier, but then he just… shut down, slouched over, pulling his hair…” She glances at Jekyll, who has an oddly vacant look in his eyes.

“Look… I really don’t want to divulge this without his permission, but.. You’ve known Henry for almost as long as I have and you probably need to know..” Robert is hesitating, he doesn’t want to gossip, but… this is important. Rachel is giving him a concerned look.

“Well, in college, Henry would have these.. episodes, where he would see things, like before exams one time, he was convinced that he was being stalked by… a maggot-faced dog, for like three days.” He glances at Henry, who seems to have caught on that they’re talking about him, he looks puzzled and a bit distressed.

“And, then at my father’s house a few days ago, he disappeared from the party, and when I found him in my mother’s tulips, he was utterly convinced that Dr. Moreau was coming after him and that he was rotten inside. When I tried to comfort him, he lashed out at me.”

“He lashed out? That doesn’t sound like Henry at all…” Rachel said, sounding shocked.

“It’s just… he was acting odd in his office and now, the look in his eyes, it reminds me so much of those instances, especially the Moreau hallucinations…”

“What do we do?” Rachel asks, glancing again at Henry, who is getting progressively more concerned.

“We’ll send him to bed and figure this out in the morning.”

-------

After he finishes his beef stew, Rachel and Robert quickly chaperone him to the spare room he claimed. He doesn’t know what they were talking about in the kitchen, but he’s pretty sure it was about him, based on the way they’re avoiding telling him.

When they get to the room, they tell him to get a good night’s rest and that they’ll talk in the morning.

That’s not ominous at all…

He decides to listen and changes into his night clothes. Putting out the lights, he crawls into his bed, trying very hard to ignore the creature leering from the end of the bed. 

He lies on the bed with his eyes closed, trying desperately to ignore the labored breathing of one of Moreau’s vivisected creatures, but eventually it becomes too much to bear. He throws the covers off of himself and crosses the room quickly, yanking open the bottom drawer of the dresser. A bottle with ‘Laudanum’ written on it rolls around at the bottom of the drawer. He takes a swig directly out of the bottle before placing it back in the drawer.

Henry goes back to the bed and hopes for a peaceful night as the tincture takes effect.