The Glass Scientists micro-fanfictions

Danger

Even as the heavy, metallic taste of his own blood stung his tongue in a way that one could not imagine anyone at all finding particularly pleasant, it seemed the perpetually skewed priorities of one Mr. Edward Hyde was altogether wrong. He was going to be in so much trouble in the morning, he just knew it and there was nothing more frightening in the whole world to him. Not even the blade that brushed the exposed skin of his throat in a way that he was not particularly fond of by any description. Every part of him was urging him to pull away, to fight back and get away, but unfortunately this felt like a far too optimistic detailing of what would happen if he tried to attempt anything at all.

Hyde was not a rational man by any stretch of the imagination but he was one that was capable of self preservation and every impulse towards this managed to fire up simultaneously in his mind, leaving him with an uncomfortable cacophony of wanting to live.
It seems, despite his best efforts, Jekyll had not managed to outright lose the desire to keep drawing breath despite everything, but unfortunately it was an impulse that was a confusing and not always entirely practical one, in the sense of the way it might manifest. 

  "You don't want to do this," Hyde began, trying very hard to sound pleasant and convincing with this, both of which came far easier to Jekyll than it ever did Hyde, "It'll be a hell of a lot easier for us both if you just forgot all this unpleasant business now and have us both go off on our merry ways. I won't tell anyone and you won't have to do anything to stain your conscious. Everybody wins! What do you say?"

"Shut the hell up or I'll make you shut up, and that sure won't be too pretty." the less than pleasant fellow wielding the knife barked, and it was all too obvious that this was a threat that he had no qualms about going through with, stains upon his conscious or not. 

Had there not been a threat behind it, there could have been something almost comical about the way that the man - he hadn't even been hospitable enough to offer his name before pulling a knife out. Woe to the state of manners for the common man, he could suppose, if one could not be gracious enough to offer greetings before undertaking a mugging. He would have thought it was more dramatic, if nothing else, to know the name of the person holding your life in their hands - had to stoop down to hold the blade against him in a way that was even remotely adequate as a threat. In order to prevent Hyde from escaping as he pleased, the man had clutched at his clothes, making it all the more difficult to try and successfully win the freedom he would have preferred. He managed to stand over a head and a half over the odd little blond creature, and really, if one was unaware of the nature of Edward Hyde, one might have left with the conclusion that the level of effort the taller was going to was simply overkill. In truth, it was the fear of personal repercussions if he ended up with a nick to the neck - somewhere horribly visible, of course - that kept him from risking something absolutely insane to try and escape.

"Look at me, I don't have anything you'd want," Hyde exclaimed, not taking the warning to heart as he possibly should have, "I don't know you so this can't be personal, so look! Nothing I wear even fits right so surely you couldn't have mistaken me for a rich man, so just let me go."

The blade was pressed just that little bit harder down, and while it was not yet close enough to draw blood, even a single mistimed twitch would have been more than capable of cutting through his skin. Admittedly there was rarely a time that he did manage to take a full breath, his breathing usually coming far too hard and fast to allow for it, so the fact he did not dare to attempt one now that there was a blade to him was not quite as woefully detrimental to him as it could have been otherwise. 

"I know who you are, Mr. Hyde," the man warned, speaking the name as if he smelt something altogether foul as he did, "You pompous little arrogant bastard, you know exactly why I'm doing this!"