Don't look back, don't look down [beingtwofold / twofoldbeing]

[dugdowndeep]

William has them in a safehouse in Shiloh, someplace CrossGen owns down to the last bit of mortar. Lucinda is frightened--she should be, it's only sane to fear the wrath of the God-anointed king, worse yet a father betrayed--but she's composed, and when she is settled he thinks of Henry. His work. The promises Jack has made. Later, he will speak

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[twofoldbeing]

When Henry went to college, his father's care was taken over by a 24 hour live-in nurse; by necessity she got to know the son as well as the father, and when Henry came home and the decision was made to move Albert to McLean, the lady herself reappeared on occasion. She gives the house enough of a once-over that no one dies of dust inhalation, writes very simple instructions regarding casseroles on Post-Its on the fridge, and neatly writes VOID across the check Henry leaves out every time she's over.

A few weeks ago he asked her not to come by for a while, and she listened until now, because if Dr. Jekyll is selling his house, someone is going to have to clean it. So it is this woman who opens the door for Jack, in her late 50s, hair dyed a ludicrous bright red and pulled back for convenience, expression a little harried. "If you're looking for Dr. Jekyll, I'm afraid he's out at the moment."

Her expression darkens. "That other one is here, though."

WHO KNOWS what sort of people are coming over to the house now that he is around. Andrea Poole does not like this, not at all. She eyes Jack's uniform with some suspicion.

[dugdowndeep]

It hadn't occurred to Jack that Henry might have anyone else in his house. Of course, Jack's home contains several hundred servants and all of his immediate family, but Henry's situation is so disparate from his own. He expected a cat, at most, not a middle-aged woman who he can assume from 'Dr. Jekyll' is not his mother.

"Sorry, 'that other one'?" At least he doesn't sound like he's here for anyone else.

"Will Henry be long? Might I come in to wait? I have- rather urgent business with him." That...probably sounds a little more ominous than it is, paired with the military uniform, which is notably not dissimilar from US army dress uniforms. But then, would a military contractor be on a first-name basis?

[twofoldbeing]

She scrutinizes him for a moment longer, then seems content to accept he means Henry no ill-will, of the mind the doctor could use ...basically any friend who is not the man in the house right now. "Please yourself, then."

The interior of the house may hold a surprisingly familiar feel for someone who has grown up in a monarchy, a place where memory is preserved forever, and things matter not because they are true, but because they are old. It's no white marble palace, it's a place with too much furniture - and nothing that feels like Henry's - but ...it's a place that has been holding its breath for a long time, and that may be something Jack understands.

"The other one," she elaborates, leading him through the house with the authority of a nurse whose job it is often to marshal errant men, "that-Hyde. Dr. Jekyll said he's to have free run of the house, but I don't like him at all."

[dugdowndeep]

It reminds him of the attics of Altar Mansion, where he and Michelle wandered when they were young--the building was new, but his mother filled it with things from times past, appropriated lineages of furniture and place settings that defined them on the terms of the dead rather than the living. He is careful not to disturb anything as he passes.

"Edward Hyde." It sounds somehow off to even speak the name here, and Jack is no less unsettled to hear it. "No, I don't imagine you would."

He thinks for a moment she and Thomasina would get along famously, but the analogy stops there. Hyde is dark and limitless in ways he can only dream of becoming--ways that fascinated him, hardly a day ago, the kind of fascination that leads bleeding men to dig at their own wounds, but the time since has left him cleaner, more changed than he understands. "He isn't the type you deny anything, though."

[twofoldbeing]

"No sir, he isn't. Unless he puts his feet up on the kitchen island again, then he'll have another thing coming." She is completely serious about this, by the way, incredibly disgruntled and trying her level best not to show underneath that how much he'd frightened her, the way he looked at her like she was less than nothing, but might still do in a pinch.

For what didn't bear contemplation. "He's down there, where Dr. Jekyll works."

The lab is in the basement below the garage, down a completely unbeautiful flight of cement stairs; Mrs. Poole is staying right the hell up here, thank you.

[dugdowndeep]

He smiles briefly but kindly, finding her stubbornness somehow endearing. "Thank you."

Jack didn't make it through six years of warfare without some manner of instincts--decent ones, in fact, the kind that are usually worth listening to, and exactly the kind that look at that stairwell and say, go anywhere but that way. But he has important business to attend to.

"Hello," he calls out on his way down the stairs. It's easy to be quiet on concrete, but Jack makes no effort to. Sneaking up on Hyde seems like a uniquely terrible idea, if it's even remotely possible. "Hyde?"

[twofoldbeing]

The room is silent at first, but it is easy to tell this is where Henry Jekyll really lives, of all the places in the house. There's a whiteboard set into one cinderblock wall, full of inscrutable equations that somewhat recently have become even stranger (two distinct sets of handwriting there, also), a long laboratory table covered in paper and various types of bottles and beakers, and in the middle of it all a computer made back when Solitaire was really revolutionary gaming software.

Silent and then not- the high, straight-backed office chair behind the computer spins once, twice, and he never looks anything like Jekyll, but there's something familiar in that slouch, even if Henry does so with a certain awkwardness rather than insouciant ease. Hyde's fingers are steepled under his chin, long legs out in front of him, propelling the chair and then stopping to face Jack not exactly head-on, more--sideways.

Like he is. "Jack." He draws out the word like snakes taste the air, like sharks with blood in the water. "How's your head?"

Due to ...drinking. Apparently.

[dugdowndeep]

His eyes follow the line of rotation, the rest of him for a moment stilled. It's...different being around Hyde here, in his own space--or Henry's space, to be accurate, but still far from Jack's kingdom of night clubs and bars, where Hyde reigns sparingly and by degrees, not leagues. There's a shift in his posture to compensate, a straightening and tightening that seems wholly inadequate.

"Clearer than I expected." He smiles ruefully. "I didn't know you were staying with Henry."

'Staying with,' he assumes, rather than 'living with,' only because he imagines in a permanent arrangement Hyde's tastes in interior decorating would evidence themselves more sharply, marring the Jekyllian milieu.

[twofoldbeing]

Interestingly enough, if Jack had been here before Mrs. Poole got there, he'd have seen some more evidence of that! But down here Hyde leaves things mostly alone, whether because he has some innate knowledge this workspace created him - or set him free, as it were - or because he has his own plans for it remains to be seen.

"Oh, you know. When I stay anywhere, Dr. Jekyll finds it somehow out of the goodness of his heart to let it be here."

He says 'goodness' kind of like it's a disease. Fittingly enough. "Well now, Prince Jack. Is this a social call?"

[dugdowndeep]

"Unfortunately not." Jack offers a terse apologetic frown, but it doesn't last--no expression does on him right now. The wheels of fate are in motion and so is he, migratory glances and carefully restrained fidgeting encroaching on his stillness in short order.

"I'm actually looking for Henry- rather desperately, in fact. You don't have any idea where he might have gone, do you?" He is beginning to suspect Henry has disappeared off the face of...any Earth, at this point.