From the doubtful look Malachi sent him, and the suspicious lift of his brow, it would have been reasonable to think that the priest had taken the question for some sort of jab.

“I know how to cook,” he insisted, but argued it no further.

He had raised many children, after all, one of which had lived with him off-and-on throughout her life. His own childhood had seen proper meals as a scarcity, but he had always done his best to make sure that no other child that came into his life went hungry. It could not always be helped, but most times it could.

As a teenager himself, that had meant learning to cook. Various churches without maids such as Mrs. Higgins had only reinforced the need to cook for himself, if he wanted to eat at all – which, was not always the case.

Malachi leaned his head back against his seat. Arthur’s response brought a hint of a smile to his face, and without turning his head, the priest looked to him from the corners of his eyes.

“Alright. I didn’t actually want to go through the hassle of finding you a place,” and he didn’t want to be away from him either, as sad as it was. London, his mother, his family… it was a lot. He needed opium to get through it.

(And he would miss him. He couldn’t quit imagining Arthur hating it all, hating him, realizing his family was right.)

Malachi slapped the doctor’s leg. Just a fraction, a tiny bit of the agitation he felt from the train, funneled out through a (kind of) playful slap.

“Be not afraid, Arthur. I will not lose you or let you starve, nor will I let anything happen to you that is not the result of my own hands.”