"Just so you know, I don't like this any more than you do."

"I beg your pardon, I was not the one who got us into this mess, so I do hope you can forgive me for not being so very enthused by this."

"Well," came the huff of one Edward Hyde, who was definitely the singular cause of their ordeal even if he was allergic to taking accountability for his own actions, "How was I supposed to know it was going to turn out like this?"

"How were you supposed to know that gluing our hands together would lead to us becoming glued to one another?" returned Robert Lanyon with significantly more patience than most could fake efficiently, "You're right, I'm sure that is far beyond your capacity to understand things."

"Exactly!" Hyde exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air, which unfortunately dragged the taller man along with him as they were far too stuck together about it, "Wait hang on, that was rude and mean and devilish and cruel of you to say."

"And now he realises it." Lanyon murmured to himself at such volume that he made sure the other heard him.

"This was supposed to make you remember that you like me and then we'd go and do something fun and be happy and have a good time," protested Hyde, "We weren't supposed to be actually stuck stuck like this."

"The glue says it's a bonding agent, what did you expect?"

"Bonding! We're holding hands and bonding and we will be happy, obviously! That's what bonding means!"

"No it isn't!" Lanyon exclaimed, waving his hands in the sort of way that left the other man to be dragged about like a weird bitey towel, "Why would you think that was even remotely what that means?"

Hyde looked thoroughly embarrassed about it all, but unfortunately he was also very annoying about everything always, and so he let out a dramatic huff. Then a second huff, then for good measure he peppered in a third just to make sure his point was thoroughly emphasised. Thank goodness he had an excessive collection of huffs to make his point evident as he was not entirely capable of committing to scowling and looking away as he kept glancing back every few moments to make sure that Lanyon was looking at him definitely and absolutely not looking at him. Which completely defeated the point of not looking at him anyways so it was just an excess of poorly presented theatrics.

"You do know how to set us free, do you not?" Robert asked, and when not looking at him became suddenly so much easier for Hyde, he wearily brought his free palm to his forehead, "My god, you don't, do you? I don't have the time to be stuck like this, I agreed to attend a meeting in less than an hour. Granted, it sounded awful and this could be an excuse to get out of it, but that still means we're stuck together, which still sounds awful."

"Excuse you, being stuck to me is not that awful thank you very much," Hyde grumbled, "I think you should be lucky to get glued to me actually, I'm very cool and I am sure there are so very many people who would be so jealous that you get the chance when they don't."

The withering glance that Lanyon gave him made it so very clear that he did not believe this at all. Instead, he just shook his hand in an attempt to separate their hands, which did not do nearly as much as he would have liked. Ignoring the other's pout, Robert tapped at his chin as he pondered and plotted and considered their options for a moment.

"I am sure the others are quite well versed in discretion, perhaps there might be someone that would would not mind us borrowing a bonesaw for a time," proposed he, "Your own bones, of course, as it was your fault we're in this mess to begin with."

"Do NOT the bonesaw!" screeched Hyde with such a shrillness that Jasper, who was on the other side of the building brought a hand to his ear without fully understanding what was the source of his discomfort.

In an attempt to flee from the presently hypothetical bonesaw that he was sure was about to descend upon his wrist at any moment, he attempted to make a mad dash for it. Which lead to absolutely nothing as they were still stuck together, and so it just left the wiry scrap of a man flailing and dragging at the other man who leaned back enough to stop himself from being dragged along.

"Henry-"

"Not Henry right now." Hyde corrected, still trying very hard to scramble away for his very life.

"Okay, Edward then, do you have a better idea then?"

"I-" Hyde began, "I do!" He was clearly all very proud of himself for finally having an idea that might not be stupid and getting him literally stuck to someone, "I'm sure that there must be something in Jekyll's office - my office? Whatever, office - that could melt it and then we'll be free and you will think I am very smart and pretend that all of this went exactly how it was planned."

"Edward I was joking about the bonesaw," Lanyon began in a deadpan, "If you just start pouring chemicals on us while hoping for the best and end up burning me in the process I will not be very happy."

"No no, I am very smart about things I promise," Hyde declared, tapping his temple hard enough to cause an audible sound, "It's still all in there, you know? Plus if I do end up needing to mix things that could end poorly, I'm sure your dear old Henry would cut through and say something. Something about vanity and self preservation and all that business."

"Does any of this," Robert gestured vaguely to the entirety of Hyde, "Even remotely word like that ?"

"It doesn't not work like that, come on let's go now before anyone comes by and you have to explain that you're holding my hand like this because you love me so dearly and want to show how fond you are of me because otherwise you'd have to admit that you let me glue us together and that would embarrass you or something like that."

Even if Lanyon might have wanted to protest the rashness of it all, he did not get the chance as Hyde resumed trying to drag them off, clasping and grasping at his own wrist to make his tugging more impactful. The pair did, fortunately, manage to scamper off without anybody else seeing them, not that there really was that far to go in order to get to the workspace that Jekyll claimed for himself. Hyde would not have minded if they were seen, but unfortunately Lanyon was very prideful and had a reputation to maintain so he could hardly be seen holding hands with very annoying men at all hours of the afternoon.

To no surprise, Jekyll's office-workplace-laboratory was nice and neat, even when Hyde accidentally started existing earlier that afternoon. Everything had its place, whether it was set out on display for the world to see or hidden away in little nooks and crannies that only the doctor, whatever component of his self he might have been at any given time, knew with any certainty even existed to begin with. There was precisely one single piece of paper on the ground, which was the result of Hyde's anticlimactic transformation earlier, where he went to dramatically sweep things off the bench, but misjudged how many things were actually on the bench and so ended up just coming off very lame in the process.

The scruffy blond creature gnawed at his thumb as he tried to recall anything that might actually be able to help them, trying to piece something together from the incoherent jumble of his mind.

"You do know what you're doing, do you not?" Lanyon asked dryly.

"Yes, shut up I'm thinking."

"For the first time? I'm sure that must be a challenge."

"Shut UP I'm THINKING!" Hyde grumbled with an irritated wrinkle of his nose.

Eventually, the fellow nodded to himself, content with his plan before dragging the other to one of the glass cabinets. The bottle he was hoping for was on one of the higher shelves and so he needed to rise up to his tipmost toes in order to actually reach it, which was frankly mortifying but the other man was, at least, kind enough to have pretended to not have noticed the shorter man's scrambling and stretching about. Then, holding the bottle in just such a way to obscure what it was labeled as, flashing a wide grin, teeth sharp and vaguely nefarious.

"I don't really want to make a mess that I'll get in trouble about later, so we have to hold out hands over the basin to make sure nothing sloshes about too much," Hyde began, "But also what a gross sounding word, 'slosh'. It makes me think of rotting things with gross slimy skin sloshing off bones and things. Is that what you think hearing the word also?"

"I've never really thought of it." Robert, who was determined to not think of it like that ever, replied.

With a thunk, Hyde set their glued together hand in the little metal basin. With an obvious disregard for the risk of contaminants and also his own well-being, he used his teeth to open the jar, swirled the liquid before raising it above their conjoined hands, humming to himself.

"What is it that you're using?" an appropriately suspicious Lanyon asked.

"Oh, just condensed sulfuric acid," Hyde replied, "I thought since it was so good at causing chemical burns as it was, it would be the quickest way to get us out of our little predicament here. Have you seen the sort of burns that sulfuric acids can cause? No, I'm sure you haven't but its just, like, super gross and takes ages to heal and even then you're going to be lucky if it even does heal close to properly."

Robert Lanyon was a gentleman, his easy airs of distinguished elegance and charm left many just as jealous as they were enamoured with the man. Robert Lanyon also, in that moment at least, had an alarmingly sharp scream of alarm. Or so Hyde had discovered when he started pouring the contents of the bottle onto both of their hands.

"Are you mad? You're going to injure us, what are you doing?" Lanyon exclaimed, trying to worm his way to freedom.

It was a freedom that he quickly managed to secure. With wide eyes, he snatched his now free hand to his chest, staring accusatorily directly at Hyde, which was the more preferable option than assessing his hand as he did not want to verify if it was even half as ruined as he imagined it would be. Hyde, however, was looking thoroughly unimpressed as he remained leaning over the basin, eyebrow raised as he righted the bottle again.

"Oh do relax won't you," chided Hyde, "I was only teasing you, it was just lemon juice. Henry keeps a concentration of it to keep things clean and I thought it might have been gently aciding enough to dissolve the glue for us. I wasn't going to actually ruin my hands over this."

"Yes, right. Of course, I knew that," came the reply, "Just don't do that again."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Hyde waved his now free hand, "Just go wash your hands and go to your meeting or whatever it was. I'm bored of this now and I'm leaving. Don't glue us together again."

"You were the one to glue us together."

"Whatever," Hyde repeated, "You don't need to be such a damned pedant about it all."

Lanyon would have liked to have the final word about it all, but Hyde had already made for the window to make his exit and so he was just left standing there alone. Thrice sighed, he busied himself with washing away the drying lemon juice and glue concoction that was making his hands increasingly more and more sticky the drier it became.

"Why on earth do I get myself into situations like this?" Lanyon asked himself, and that was the end of it.

He had other things to do so he just pushed the whole glue incident aside and carried on with his day.