Kind of want a drabble of the Hyde/Mina scene if it's not to much trouble.
it was the low hiss coming from behind him and slightly to his right that told him she was about to slip into a state of frenzy. Sure enough, when he turned Mina Harker was on all fours, her face distorted in an animal snarl, back arched like a cat. She growled.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?!” Edward said, his bright green eyes lit with bemusement, “That’s how ye know what Dracula’s been up to since he’s woken up. He turned you…he’s yer sire.”
He barely had time to throw an arm up to protect his throat when she lunged, knocking them both onto the floor. Edward cursed and kicked her away, hard, her teeth leaving deep grooves in his skin. She coughed and sputtered, gagging. She rubbed at her mouth, frothy red saliva foamed at the corners of her lips.
“Not very tasty am I? That’s the serum. Makes my blood foul,” Hyde laughed and groped in his shirt and pulled out a crucifix. A precaution against Theo, but hopefully Mina wasn’t any less devout.
Mina recoiled with a yowl. Holding the crucifix aloft, Edward fumbled for his desk drawer and pulled out a syringe. He dropped the crucifix, and when Mina lunged again, he caught her and jammed the needle into the flesh of her upper arm.
She went still and made a low, pained sound. Edward took advantage of the reprieve to grab a bottle of capsules. He dumped three into the palm of his hand and then wrangled the vampire, forcing them into her mouth. He held his hand over her lips and rubbed her throat to get her to swallow.
“Come on! Down the hatch!”
The moments felt like hours as he waited for the red sheen to fade from her eyes, and he watched the lucidity return, and with it came a look of horrified realization.
Mina tore herself away from him and dragged herself to a corner. He could hear her panicked gasping as she curled into herself and began to sob.
Edward looked at the trembling woman with a mixture of pity and irritation.
“Ye can stop sniveling, it’s passed,” he grunted.
Mina Harker hugged her knees to her chest. He waited. She didn’t speak, so he did.
“A 'thank you' wouldnae go amiss, ye know,” he scoffed, “That serum I gave ye and those dried tablets are the reason yer even human enough to cry right now.” There was a rustle and the scrape of a toppled chair being righted and dragged back to a desk. The dull thunk of wood on wood as Edward leaned back, chair precariously balanced on its back legs as he lifted his bitten arm.
“How long have ye been a vampire? Further, how has yer husband not noticed?”
“I haven’t been a vampire!” Mina protested, “This hasn’t happened since…since…”
“Since Dracula was last awake?” The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place and with a hollow plunk the front legs of the chair were back on the ground and Hyde was leaning forward with his hands resting on his bent knees.
“Answer me!” He barked, losing patience with Mina’s silence, “Were you free of symptoms while Dracula was in torpor?”
“Yes!” she cried, “I thought I was cured!”
“I see…so it all goes back to the condition of the sire. Like the matriarch insect in a hive,” he ruminated aloud.
Mina did not confirm or deny. She didn’t know. Not for certain.
“Ye know. I may not have a cure but I’ve made progress. That serum I gave you suppresses hunger and the hunting instinct and those tablets are filled with concentrated blood powder. Enough that when mixed with water it produces the equivalent of one cup of blood. Keeps you fed enough that you don’t go into a frenzy like ye just did,” he waved his arm.
She still wasn’t speaking but she was interested. He could tell from the way her eyes followed him. And why shouldn’t she be interested? She was a smart woman, smart enough to know that he was her best chance at staying in control. He preened a little. That pleased him. He wondered if her husband would be upset. He hoped he would. Sanctimonious shit. He giggled aloud and caught himself when he saw Mina wrinkled her nose.
Right. Mina. Let’s not get distracted now…
“Glad ye aren’t an atheist. I don’t have a lick of faith in me,” he twirled the crucifix and she shuddered, wincing. He put it away, “Did you know it’s the vampire’s faith that makes it work? Theo’s an Irish Catholic so it works twice as powerfully on her.”
She was chewing her thumbnail and staring at something on the floor.
Her glasses. Cast aside when she’d gone into her frenzy. He picked them up and examined them for damage. No harm done. With a satisfied nod Edward returned them to her. He could simply have handed them back but he chose instead to tilt her face up and place them back on her nose. He wiped the corners of her mouth clean with his unstained sleeve. It wasn’t necessary but he wanted her to know that she wasn’t hated. Not for being what she was.
“Being a monster is easy, being human again and living with the things the monster has done is the hard part,” as he spoke the gruffness eased from his voice. The sharp angles of his face softened with a touch of age and filled out briefly before his cheeks sank back into gauntness. He scratched his black whiskers, itchy as they thickened in along his jaw.
“Is that something you know a lot about?” Mina was peering very shrewedly at him. It made him nervous that she wasn’t just looking at him, she was seeing him. More clearly than her son or her husband ever did.
Well he saw her too. He’d just seen her being grotesque, helpless, and hideous. He saw her afterwards too. She didn’t have to say it.
That wasn’t me. It was something else. I didn’t do that.
She had to tell herself those lies because that was how she stayed Mina.
Edward shouldn’t have said anything. It was wrong for him to speak it aloud but restraint had never been one of his gifts.
“Do ye ever hate him? That man you love. Tha one who is always good and who hasnae a streak of evil in him? Does it kill you little by little that the one ye want more than anything cannot even comprehend yer nature because it is so alien to his own?”
Her pretty dark eyes went wide, “Yes,” she didn’t ask how he knew. It was obvious enough, “What was her name?”
“Utterson,” He didn’t mention that Utterson was not “her” but rather “him.” They weren’t close enough for that yet. Edward didn’t doubt they would be in time. Before she could probe further, he asked her, “Have ye ever wanted someone who could love the monster too?”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t need her too. Still he waited. Letting her have the floor if she wanted.
“If he could love that part of me, then he wouldn’t be someone I could love.”
The despair in her voice was like a mirror, cracking and spiderwebbing into fragments. That was always the rub, wasn’t it? If good could love evil, it wouldn’t be good anymore. He huffed, angry. Not at her, but angry all the same.
“I could love you. As much as I could love anyone, I think I could love all of you,”
“But you aren’t a good man. Are you?”
There was no judgment, no condemnation. It hurt worse that way. He watched the floor get further away as his legs lengthened and filled out his oversized trousers. When he looked back at Mina his hair was lighter and whitening at his temples. His eyes were the melancholy grey color of rainclouds.
“I would very much like to be. I think there was some part of me that was once.”
She stood and he was surprised to see she was shorter than him now. She had to take his face in her hands and pull him down to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you, Doctor Jekyll.”
She said no more. He wished she would and was glad she didn’t. When she left he whispered after her.
“You’re welcome, Mrs Harker."
