Snakebite

Shylock hadn’t cried in years.  He didn’t even know why the tears were welling up now.  He’d come to terms with his parents’ attitude when he was a child and Selwyn was at least smart enough to realise he was missing something.  There was no rational reason for him to be upset.

Fortunately, he was saved by the waitress delivering their meals.

“They wouldn’t bother with a silencing hex over just that,” he said as he stole a strawberry from Selwyn's plate.  “The emphasis should be on not their children.  They very definitely believe they own us.”

“You know my parents both have Ph.D.s in science?” he said.  “Not many witches and wizards can say that.”

It took Selwyn only a moment to understand what Shylock was talking about, though he couldn’t bring himself to say it directly. Could barely bring himself to think it.

“I thought you meant they got the neighbourhood kids to babysit you,” he said instead, “but you meant their actual students. What were you, the extra credit assignment?”

“I assume you know why they did it?”

Shylock nodded.

“Of course I know why. When we got old enough mum and dad liked us to-“ his words were suddenly muffled.

Shylock's eyes widened in shock and he slapped a hand across his mouth.

Selwyn found himself oddly discomforted by the way Shylock talked about his parents as “mum and dad”. Surely nobody who did… that… to their children could be anyone’s mum or dad.

However no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than Shylock was cut off. Looked like he’d been right about that secrecy spell.

Selwyn glanced quickly around the café before cautiously drawing his wand and lifting the silencing charm.

“You don’t have to say,” he said. “I can understand why you’d have panic attacks if you can’t even tell anyone about your life. I mean, it’s not like a talking cure is going to help you much.”

“It’s not just that,” Shylock tried to explain. “In fact, I know my childhood must sound awful, but it really wasn’t so bad. We may not have had a lot of affection, but we didn’t have many restrictions, either.”

“One of the most important and underrated things about experimentation is that it has to be repeatable,” he seemingly broke topic again. “And most biologists agree that lab animals need to be in excellent health in order for that to happen. I’ve read papers where they measure the stress levels of lab rats as part of the experimentation.”

He picked up a chip, realising he’d barely eaten anything and his food had started to go cold.

“Anyway, that’s not the problem. I just needed to give you the context to understand why I’ve been conditioned never to trust anyone. And why feeling like I can trust you might trigger a fight or flight response.”

“I believe you have a story for me now?” he asked.

Earlier in the day, Selwyn had given up trying to keep track of the amount of times he didn’t know how to react. He knew from his own brief stint with a muggle psychologist that there was no correct way to react to anything.

He hated the way Shylock was forced to talk about himself as a lab animal for fear of setting off the spell again, but at the same time, he knew the other man would be unable to tell him anything without such metaphors. Though Selwyn wasn’t sure if metaphor was the right word here.

He left off his own meal to catch up Shylock’s hand and kiss his knuckles.

“You’re not a lab animal,” he reassured him.

Ah, there was that feeling again. Right on time. The only reason Shylock didn’t give into it was because he knew what triggered it this time around, and Selwyn’s words came from a place of affection.

“Humans are animals, Selwyn,” he replied.

“I know what you’re trying to do, but it just makes me feel like you want to pretend it didn’t happen,” he went on. “And that freaks me out. Feel.”

He put Selwyn’s hand on his chest, allowing him to feel his racing heart.

With his hand pressed to Shylock’s chest, even through two layers of thick wool, Selwyn could easily feel the other man’s ribs. His fluttering heartbeat was harder to distinguish, but Selwyn could tell it wasn’t regular.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m so used to people treating me like the veela part is all there is to me, I made a stupid assumption.”

He slid his hand from Shylock’s chest, around his shoulders and pulled him close.

“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t want you to pretend that, either,” he said. “I just… It’s a lot to take in, y’know?”

“Compared to that, anything I have is like a ray of sunshine.”

Shylock unselfconsciously made himself comfortable with his head on Selwyn’s shoulder. Deciding to come here was a good idea. Not that all witches and wizards were so close minded, but there were a still a fair number of wizarding restaurants where sitting like this would have got them asked to leave.

“I spilled my guts, Thorfinn,” he said. “C’mon, it’s not a proper pity party unless everyone’s invited.”

Selwyn snorted his amusement.

“Okay,” he agreed.  

He ran his free hand through his hair while the blush threatened to reach his cheeks again.

“I think… Okay, so my family’s been halfblood for time immemorial, basically.  My father’s Laird of Glen Coe in the muggle world.  Around the time of the Statute of Secrecy, the muggle side of the family were all slaughtered,” he explained.  

“It had nothing to do with the Statute,” he clarified, “it was done by other muggles over… Well, really it was because we’d liberated some of the guy’s livestock.”

“But they breached hospitality when they did it,” Selwyn found himself becoming angry, as always when he considered these events. “It was the middle of winter and we offered them shelter from the storm.  We hosted them for two weeks before they turned on us.”

“We think that’s what triggered the blood ward, even though most of the people killed were muggles.  There would have been magic in their blood anyway, and hospitality is always a big deal.  There are whole legends about it.”

“The upshot is that I have to meet a girl, take her home and get her knocked up.  And, to keep the muggles from asking questions, I ought to marry her as well, but that part isn’t strictly required.”