Doctor Jekyll; to relearn humanity.

Chapter 2: ... to the worst party yet.

Seventh time should be the charm, this time Jekyll would finally enjoy social gatherings.

He stood off to the side of the... surprisingly massive room. It was rented out for this occasion, but even with all the people, he could tell the hosts expected less to show up. All the women were in their finest ball wear, all the men... wore suits. He made sure to wear something... nice for this. He kept his hands to himself, fiddling with his fingers in hopes to keep calm this time. He'd only now realise how close he was to scratching through the sleeves. He shot his hand down to his side.
This time he will be a normal member of society.
Everyone at the party was split off into groups, talking and drinking while the night was young... I mean, it wasn't young, it was nearing the late evening as the sun had already set. He had been here for hours already, and it couldn't feel any more wrong. He was planning on just not showing up to the ball, to sleep early and wake earlier. Solitude as was usual.

He walked past the hosts on the way in, not knowing for certain if they saw him or not.
Did they see him? They probably saw him. They are just waiting to call him for some sort of speech... like the third time he went to one of these.

The suit for occasions like this caged his torso, shallow breaths being all the air he got. He held nothing but hatred for clothes that were too tight. He wanted to go home, get into something looser. Something other than this.
Anything other than this.

The guests were talking amongst themselves, conversations bleeding into each other, noise, a lot of it. There were bits of conversations he could discern, talking about family, about marriage. There was one conversation from a different doctor giving advice to two- maybe three people. It was bright in the room, blinding could also be a good descriptor, these parties are always bright.
It was always bright, and loud, and suffocating.
It was always... not fun.

A shallow breath was supposed to calm the doctor down, and it did. For about five seconds.
It was something small that set him off at first, but noticeable. There was a seeming muffling of the noise, as if the lights dimmed. His hands shook when he checked, his head pounding as his balance worsened. This happened before, it always happened before he did something idiotic, something out of his own control. He began breathing as much as he could, trying to calm himself down to no avail.

He needed to leave. Now.

He turned to make his early departure, weaving throughout the densely packed ballroom. He probably caught the attention of a few people, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. he was about ten seconds away from the door out of... at least this room, he'd be in the hall after that, then the reception, foyer, and then finally outsi-
"There he is, I told you he would be here." The high, feminine voice called out above the rest from behind him, getting closer as the sound of expensive high heels clicked across the ballroom floor followed suit. There was another pair of footsteps, ones he couldn't discern, but oh he knew the voice.
He slowed the walk and forced an uncomfortable smile, bringing himself onto as steady footing as he could.
"The elusive Doctor Jekyll, just as you wrote to him." He turned around to face Mrs. Morris, along with one of the hosts who she dragged over for the conversation.

"Well I'll be." The man that stood with the lady was the closest anyone had gotten to the same height as the doctor, a ginger. A bit of a beer gut, still a charming and upstanding citizen. The suit he wore was similar to the one Jekyll was being suffocated in, except he seemed to be all smiles about it. He had a face you could pick out of a crowd: a cocky smile, freckles scattered haphazardly all about, green eyes that nearly shot through the back of the Doctor's head. The doctor looked to the ground, a common avoidance of eye contact for him.
"I thought if you were to show up, I would get a letter back." There was a small chuckle from the man before him, swirling a glass of wine in his hand and taking a sip before continuing. "I had my doubts it was going to be like the last time, but no, here he is in the flesh."

He offered Jekyll a hand to shake.

The doctor lightly pushed it away.

Jekyll looked back towards the exit of the room. "Why..?" he started, but Mrs. Morris dragged all the attention back to herself. Her voice gets ever closer to growing annoying with the posh accent she put up. "I dragged him here because I wanted to introduce the two of you to each other." She gestured to the man before Jekyll, his face one of confusion. "Mr. Utterson, this it-"
"I already know him."
Mrs. Morris looked shocked at this, even as these two men were of higher class, she had never seen them interact. "Oh you do?" She didn't mean to say anything, but it seemingly slipped out. "I thought you just wanted to have bragging rights."
"I'm his lawyer," Mr. Utterson spoke up again, a knowing look on his face as he turned to the doctor. "Harry was it?"

"...no? It's... Henry." Jekyll had gone back to fiddling with the suit he was stuck in, wanting to seem like he was fully there even if he really wanted to leave. He could barely comprehend what was being said before him, with the party reaching its loudest in the night.
"Man of few words." Utterson playfully scoffed, before turning to Mrs. Morris as they continued their conversation. "I would assume I knew him, so I invited him to help sober people up." The two looked towards one group in particular, several faces all inebriated beyond clean thoughts.
Jekyll saw a way out. Even with the lights burning his eyes, he could see no one in front of him was paying him any mind. This was it, all he needed to do was leave. With a shallow breath, he took a step back.
"You already sober us up with how boring you are." Mrs. Morris joked with Utterson, getting a sigh from him.
The doctor took another step without anyone noticing, the two before him bickering to each other.
And another.

Before making it far enough away to take a heel turn and speed walking out of the ballroom.
"Maybe I could even introduce him to... Enfield...?" He caught blips of the conversation he left as the noise died down.
The tiled floor turned to wood as he made it to the reception area, all the glimmer of the ballroom juxtaposed by the surprisingly dim and quiet foyer.
He didn't bother to appear 'normal' once he was out of the building, turning the speed walk to a sprint. He ran away from there as fast as he could, tripping over loose stones every once in a while. The majority of the town was at the party, leaving the streets quieter than usual. If it weren't for the pain in his head, he would have gone directly to sleep.

Tonight was too much for him.