Chapter Text
To Jekyll, the best part of his affair in college was waking up in Lanyon’s arms. The knowledge that he could fall asleep and no matter what nightmares haunted him at night, no matter how much he fretted over what his peers thought about him, no matter how wrong he felt his love was, someone would be there to warmly embrace him when he opened his eyes to the faint morning light. And that someone would be the man he hopelessly adored, whom he prayed felt the same way about him.
Maybe he was foolish to believe things could be like they were back then. That he could have one simple thing in his pitiful life after all that’s changed. Changed because of his actions.
But this morning, Jekyll woke up to a chill over his skin. The only tangible warmth came from a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. The same voice that used to speak with gentleness reserved only for him was instead tense and hostile. His head was too fuzzy to understand what Lanyon was saying, but it was almost in the same tone he used when talking to…
“Hyde! Get up.”
Jekyll’s eyes shot open. Blond hair in his eyes. Oh no.
“Why in God’s name were you lying in my arms, Hyde?”
One deep breath as Jekyll quickly weighed whether coming up with some absolutely insane story to explain the current situation or telling the actual truth would be more difficult. In his professional opinion, he was royally fucked either way. But being Henry Jekyll, lying felt safer. Anything to escape that room and find a way to change back into his own body.
Swallowing down the horror of impending embarrassment and tuning out Hyde’s internal stirring, he sat up as energetically as possible, plastering a shaky smirk on his face. Lanyon’s subsequent look of disgust made him want to hide under the covers. It was only going to get worse from here, wasn’t it?
“Aye! It’s me, Hyde. Edward Hyde!” Jekyll said through his teeth. “Boy, I really hogswoggled you there! I bet you feel like a big ole chucklehead!”
Lanyon blinked thrice, then frowned. “Right. Just tell me where Henry is. What did you do to him? And, again, why are you here?”
With a shaky chuckle, Jekyll leaned away from Lanyon. “Easy now! The doctor’s fine, he’s—”
“Are you wearing his clothes?!”
Jekyll winced behind his smile. “Just part of my spiffing ruse! You’ll never guess how I plan to run this rig. Which has elements that I actually have to tend to. Right now.” He stood up, stumbling a bit from the sheets catching on his ankles, but retaining his balance.
Sadly, Lanyon would not let him get away that easily. He sat up and crossed his arms.
“Hey, no! You are going to tell me what you’ve done to Henry.” He narrowed his eyes in a way that Jekyll found frankly adorable, but he couldn’t think about that right now.
“Oh, but what better way to find out than to speak with him directly? You’d like that, yes?” Right. Then he could slip out, run back to the Society, change back, and come back as himself to Lanyon. As for the fact that he dumped all his transformation potion out to spite Hyde…well, he’d figure it out on the way. There had to be a vial or two left. Or at least the ingredients for it. When had he last gotten a shipment?
Lanyon contemplated for a moment, then shrugged and stood up. “Yes. You’ll bring me to him, then. Let me get dressed first.”
Not ideal.
“Ah, wait one second, Rob—er, Lanyon. I can fetch him myself and bring him back here. Don’t trouble yourself!”
That earned a glare. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re clearly hiding something. I’m coming with.”
“Fine! Alright, just…” Jekyll looked away. It felt wrong to look at Lanyon in this body. “Put a shirt on.”
At that, Lanyon half-scoffed, half-chuckled. “I was getting there. I didn’t remember you being a prude.”
While Lanyon turned away, Jekyll began to think about what he should do. Or, more accurately, what Hyde would do. It had to be a good, believable prank that somehow landed them at the Society. From there, separating from Lanyon would be easy. Once he changed back, he could just rejoin him and everything would be fine!
So, what would Hyde do? Well, this wasn’t exactly the first time he had woken up in someone else’s room. There was the morning Griffin chased him out of his lab with a newspaper while he was peacefully curled up with the invisible rats, the night he was tickled awake by ghosts in Maijabi’s room, the time he had to scream for Rachel to turn off the oven from the inside because she started preheating it while he was pretzeled on one of the racks…
God, Hyde really did fall asleep anywhere when he was drunk.
But what did any of that have to do with Jekyll? Would it be believable that Hyde kicked Jekyll out of bed to lie there instead? No, Jekyll wouldn’t run away after that. Wouldn’t the story have to involve Hyde moving him somewhere, then coming back to sleep next to Lanyon? Nothing made sense.
“Having some trouble trying to replicate my cunning intellect, are we?” Hyde’s voice came to mock.
A deep breath. I certainly wouldn’t turn down some help on this one, Jekyll reluctantly thought back.
Hyde’s intense excitement rose the hairs on his forearms. “Ooo, there’s so many possibilities for this! And all of them would horrify Lanyon. Let’s see…say ‘I was being pursued by a spider-type guy’…”
Jekyll heard Lanyon pulling his dress shirt on and buttoning it up.
“...‘Like a real evil man crossed with an arachnid. He was crawling up the wall and I climbed in through the window at the last second before he could sink his venomous fangs into me’…”
Then him tucking the shirt into his trousers.
“...Wait, being bitten by an evil spider bloke? Kind of hot. I’m not sure I’d run away from that…”
The rustling of his cravat being tied around his collar.
“...So then, ‘I got bit by this spider guy, then ran to find Jekyll to make me an anecdote.’ Actually, no, that’s lame...”
Him picking up his waistcoat, the jangling of the back buckle.
“...Instead say, ‘I bit Jekyll and spread the venom to him. Then Jekyll freaked out and ran to the Society to create a cure. Meanwhile, I stayed back to bite you.’ That way, you can threaten to bite him if you need to convince him to do anything. It’s perfect.”
Finally, the last button clicked into place.
“I’m decent now,” Lanyon muttered. “Your turn. You might as well wear the rest of Henry’s clothes.”
“Right,” Jekyll whispered as he turned back around. He buttoned up the shirt hanging around his shoulders and pulled the rest of his clothes on as swiftly as possible, all while obsessing over whether he could actually pull off a Hyde impression for so long. If the way to the Society got side-tracked, if his debt-collectors found him, if the police found him…how would he stay in character? No. He had to come clean.
After securing every button and loop, Jekyll faced Lanyon with all the courage he could muster. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep this up for much longer. Lanyon, I’m not Edward Hyde.”
There was a long pause of suspicion mixed with curiosity, before he responded, “Is that so?”
“Yes. The truth is…” It was now or never. “…My name is Charles Hyde. I’m Edward’s twin brother.”
“What?”
“What?!”