The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Henry is not vibing

It was Jasper's turn to keep an eye on Dr. Jekyll. The task itself was perfectly simple, all he had to do was stay in the room and if-or-when Henry does something, he has to run and fetch Dr. Lanyon, who had been called away from his vigil. The werewolf had actually taken over from Robert, who had promised he would not be too long, but it was not the duration of the task that was causing him to fidget with his sleeved, but rather the fact that the task was needed at all.
Henry had entered the room perfectly fine, just he had done countless times before, but something, they assumed, had given out and he had wound up collapsing at the table he was sitting at. Robert, who had thankfully been the only one there at that moment, was quite sure it was from over-exhaustion and that it would do him a world of good to not be disturbed. If anything changed, Jasper had been told when he was figuratively dragged into the room, he needed to go and find Lanyon - who would come running even if he was in a meeting with each and every member of the bloody royal family - so things would be sorted out, otherwise he just needed to not leave the red clad doctor alone.

Henry had been propped up in a somewhat more dignified manner with his head on his arms like a makeshift pillow. Not only did this mean he was less likely to obstruct breathing, it would also be a little less likely to be plagued by aches and pains when he woke. Although Jasper had brought his journal in with him so he could work while he was in there, his attention kept returning to the other man, his eyebrows furrowing just a little more with every glance. Determined to not get too bogged up in his worries - something he was never very good at - he forced himself to at the very least finish the sentence he was writing. It shouldn't have been hard, just an observation of the greater Gnollwaker in its natural environment, something he had spent enough time studying recently to be able to write with ease, but he was nowhere near succeeding. Bogged up in words, specifics, what to elaborate on and what doesn't need elaborations, and all those things that were crucial for clarity in works - all of which it is clear the writer of this fails consistently at - which should have been easy, but it wasn't.

"Why... is everything ringing?"

A voice snapped Jasper right out of his forced writing-induced stress. It was a wonder that he didn't drop his heavily chewed on pencil with the sheer force he jolted up into a clumsy standing position.

"Sir... uh, Henry?" the werewolf asked, quickly correcting himself to what the other preferred him to refer to him as. 

"Everything is..." Henry groaned, ever so slightly raising his head, his face twitching with undeniable discomfort, "Everything is ringing!" His voice cracked horribly, world-weary and with the weight of the world on his back.

The doctor let out another groan, frantically clasping at his ears. There was something in the way that he did this that was oddly reminiscent  of a man faced with horrors beyond his comprehension, or worse still, a man who had stubbed his toe on the same hearth three times in a row and it was getting worse and worse with every single time he managed to hit the same spot. If he was in a more coherent state of mind, Henry would have almost found the fact his present situation felt like the exact middle of horrors beyond comprehension and stubbing a toe.

"Are you alright, Henry?" Jasper's voice wavered slightly, daring to approach the doctor. He had the same general demeanour approaching the visibly distressed doctor as he would a wild animal, which he had more experience with than he did when it came to approaching wild animals than he did offering help to people.

"I can't hear you," Jekyll croaked out, making the safe assumption that the werewolf was speaking to him even with his eyes a little too foggy to really tell, his grip on his ears getting tighter and tighter, his crimson-wine coloured eyes eventually screwing up tightly in an attempt to block out something unpleasant that Jasper would never want the misfortune of experiencing, "I can't hear anything!" He raised his voice louder and louder as he spoke, trying to hear anything over the strange ringing that took over his senses. 

Jasper flinched just a little at sheer volume the other's exclamation ended up at. This was not just because his senses were heightened due to his lycanthropic nature but largely from how harrowing this sounded. Henry Jekyll always seemed so perfectly composed, but seeing him sitting there, slumped over, head in his hands and looking horrifically human. 
He was so caught up in his current concerns over the other that it seemed he had outright forgotten that he had promised to get Lanyon at the very first signs of Henry shifting.

"I can't..." 

Whatever it was that the good Dr. Henry Jekyll was going to say fell away before it even managed to fully form in his mind. This was not the most concerning part of it, however, as his head hit the table again with a solid sounding thunk. The brief wakefulness he had entered, it seemed, was not to last.
The sound of the man hitting the wood was more than enough to snap Jasper back out of his concern riddled thoughts, reminding him, in an unpleasant way, that he did actually have a duty there. Without missing a beat, the werewolf was off, racing down the hallway to try and find Dr. Lanyon."

When Henry Jekyll came to a second time, he seemed to be quite alright and, aside from a crook in his neck, perfectly alright. He had no recollection of Jasper being there at all, and even less of his distress that the young werewolf had borne witness, but Jasper remembered and, much like he would with a creature acting in a way he didn't recognise, made the note to keep an eye on the doctor to make sure it would not happen again if he could prevent it.