The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Rot

"I think I might be rotting." was what the good and respectable Dr. Henry Jekyll said out of the blue, utterly spoiling the mood of what had already begun to feel like an increasingly more tedious dinner. Considering the discussion had been skirting around terribly professional matters up until that moment, this absolutely threw the topic not only off the left field but into another, different game altogether. It was not just the nature of the words themselves, but the fact that he delivered it with the casual nonchalance that was usually reserved for matters of weather and similar inconsequential matters. 

"I don't think you are," came the reply Robert Lanyon offered once he was quite sure the wine he had poorly timed a sip of would not be coughed back up again, "I mean, if you were rotting I'm quite sure I would have noticed by now and you still look perfectly fine." He did not quite manage to deliver this with the aloofness that he had intended to speak this with, though he held the fact that he didn't sound like he was seconds away from choking - which he absolutely was - as a complete win for him.

"No, I don't think that you would," Jekyll countered, daintily dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, "Nobody would. I'm rotting away from the inside out so nobody would be able to notice it until it's too late to do anything more than watch me fall to whatever pieces might still be left in relatively appropriate condition." This was once more said far too pleasantly for the subject matter. "Though I think it might have already reached the point of no return a while ago so that is of no real substance, is it? I feel that's rather appropriate, however."

"No," Lanyon returned with an indignant snort, the indignance being entirely born of a desire to hide the fact he was worried about his companion, "That is not appropriate at all. The point of no return? That's so dreadfully fatalistic of you Henry, You aren't rotting, that's absolutely ridiculous, you're perfectly fine." He did not think that the other was perfectly fine at all. In fact, the more he argued against what he had been told the more he found himself not believing a single word he said. If he could not bring himself to believe himself his words, there was almost no way that he could convince the other of this. 

"I told you, Robert," was what this was met with, "I am rotten inside, you will not be able to see it. I know that it is happening, and I know that anything less than personally vivisecting myself I have no way to prove this," he paused to skewer a vegetable on his fork, somehow managing to maintain enough of an appetite - or at least was well enough trained at being able to choke down food with a smile regardless of how difficult the circumstances - to eat even as he continued the altogether inappropriate dinnertime conversation, "But I do not think I would be able to stitch myself back up again if I were to prove it to the world." 

"Nobody is getting vivisected," Robert returned, the idea turning him off his food enough to need him to nudge the plate away before the previously appetising scent of it prompted him to lose what he had previously managed to consume, "That's dreadful. That's a dreadful thought and it is far too early in the night to start having dreadful thoughts like that, and I," he paused, reaching for the bottle of wine that had been placed conveniently in arms reach between them both, and relocated the remainder of the beverage into his glass, "Am far too sober to deal with thoughts like that." 

Evidently there was something in this that had been enough to amuse Dr. Jekyll, as he let out a small laugh. Somehow he managed to laugh the most dignified laugh possible for someone who was supposedly rotting away to nothingness. But, of course, he had dedicated far too much time and effort to the pursuit of perceptible perfection to slip over something as unimportant as the belief that he was falling about at the seams. That would frankly just be embarrassing at this point, and, worse still, would suggest that despite all his efforts to the contrary it would prove that he really was nothing grander than any other person was. A dreadful thought, really. To be mortal and merely human in a world full of mortal humans determined to treat their own selves as being a crime. A shame. Something to be shunned and forgotten and hated. Left to rot. 

Henry did open his mouth to make a comment, however this was cut short with a pointed raising of his companion's hand. There was a prolonged silence that followed this as, as Robert had stated, the man was nowhere near as sozzled as it felt like the situation was calling for and so set to rectifying this.

"Enough," came the reply he finally offered, "Enough of these tragic matters, it is not why we're here. It is a lovely night and the sky is clear, why should we waste it on taking about anything that is worse than the weather is right now. So. Enough of all that." There was something overly compensatory behind both the cheer in this comment and the sheer speed of which he delivered it. He didn't want to admit that he did not want to hear what else the other had to say about the topic.

And so, the topic was left brushed to the side and altogether unresolved. It was not forgotten as quickly as it was dropped, but Lanyon was quite sure that the nightmare of a rotting Jekyll coaxing him to a long forgotten grave was entirely a coincidence and not a direct result of him having gotten unsettled by a brief conversation over dinner.