June, 1879 - an opium den in wizarding London

Arthur was at an opium den, but he wasn't high — this was the sort of thing that occasionally happened when one was living in a room at an opium den. His roommates were throwing a party. They had not told him they were throwing the party in advance, but given that Art was living out of a suitcase here and not paying rent, he supposed he could excuse it. (Also — this was the sort of opium den he would have frequented back when he had money, and therefor also one of the better places he'd talked his way into staying in the past few months.

So he was hanging around the party drinking whiskey and generally being charming and gregarious and directing people to where they wanted to be, as if this was his job, which he supposed it was. He was in the middle of doing this from his perch on the arm of a couch when he recognized one of the men there — not just because they had met, but because they knew each other well, in the way that second-cousins-who-went-to-school-together knew each other.

"Valerian," Art said, tilting his head at his relative in a languid sort of way. He was trying to gauge whether or not Valerian had had any opium or laudanum yet; people who were high could be dreadfully irritating to talk to when one was just drinking, and feasibly he could putter off to his room and avoid this whole party if that was going to be a dynamic here. "I didn't think this was your sort of place."

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