Hesitance was written clearly on the priest’s injured face as he considered it.

After a glance down at his hands… Malachi dipped his head in agreement.

“Alright,” he said, “you can help with my hands. And… you can wait outside while I do the rest, if you want. But please, Nettie, don’t let- all of this consume your day. I will be fine.”

He mustered more confidence into the assurance than he really felt.

Taking a seat at the table, Malachi pulled the bandages close and began unrolling them, but quickly stopped. It was harder than he’d thought, with every tiny movement of his fingers making them ache anew.

Sheepishly, he pushed the roll of bandages closer to his niece.

It was difficult for him to believe that she preferred this to all of the lighter, more fun things she could have been doing with her day, but beyond a doubtful look, Malachi did not express as much.

He held his hands as still as he could, but they shook. More so when Nettie applied the salve, drawing a stinging sensation to the cuts all over again, but Malachi didn’t complain and didn’t pull away.

“I will,” he promised quietly, watching her move onto careful bandaging. Meeting her eyes was too hard, again, now that the ache had stirred throughout his body with sleep.

“You did that very well,” Malachi praised, partly to distract himself. “Have you done this before?”

How had he not known that?

“Oh,” Malachi said with a subtle raise of his brows, but it pulled at the cut on his face. “That’s wonderful, Nettie. That was really kind of you to do.”

Even if he figured she probably hadn’t expected to use those skills on him. It still made him proud to hear it, and a small smile hinted at his bruised lips.

“I… if I let you help me, you have to promise me you won’t freak out, and you will not tell a constable. I don’t want to stress you any more than I have.”

Malachi regarded her with an uncertain, only slightly off-focus gaze.

The scars that covered his body, from the base of his neck, to his wrists, to his ankles – it was bad enough for any glimpse of the curved designs to be seen, even without the mess of deep bitemarks and scrapes and everything else. And what about the long cut that ranged from shoulder to shoulder? The scraped skin at his wrists?

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he said, “alright. Just–”

Don’t ask questions, he wanted to say, but that would only bring more questions. He dismissed it with a shake of his head, and moved to stand.

The buttons of his cassock proved tricky with his bandaged hands. Malachi refused to look Nettie’s way as he shed the long, black garment, leaving him in the dark trousers he always wore beneath.

“So- maybe just-… the salve,” he said uselessly.

Not for the first time in his life, Malachi felt like an animal put on display.

While Nettie circled him, inspecting the damage done, he felt color burn his face and kept his eyes downcast.

Arthur looks worse, he almost said, I don’t even know if he’ll wake up.

“It’s fine,” he said in regards to the pain, giving only a slight wince when he first felt the salve touch his skin. “It… was my own fault, some of it. Most of it.”