No chance for fate; it's unnatural selection

Shylock actually did roll his eyes.  From the reaction, Lupin obviously wasn't one of those kinds of people.  Still, he wished he didn't have to deal with the man's defensiveness.

"Some people would do it because one of their staunchly held beliefs is probably that same sex attraction is unnatural and anyone who is, shouldn't be near children," he said wearily. "I would've thought you could figure that one out for yourself."

"And, excuse me for saying so, but you don't come across as very tolerant.  You come across as a cold, hard bastard without feelings.  I had no reason to believe you wouldn't do something like that."

"Sorry for not assuming you're one of the tiny minority of people who aren't total arseholes. It's not like that's ever backfired in the past," he added sarcastically.

He laughed when Ashcroft said he came across as a cold, hard bastard. "Thank you," he said, unoffended. "I've worked hard to develop that. When I need to be an asshat, I can do that. It works when I need it to work. When I don't need it, I don't use it. It's just a tool, like any other tool."

"I can understand where you'd think that of me but I have no patience for most forms of intolerance. Remember, I'm part of a family that's gone through decades of being on the wrong end of intolerance. We were all rejected because we were all labeled as monsters, less than human. I grew up with people thinking I was the same monster as they thought my brother was--until people suddenly thought Remus was a legend after he died in the war. That disgusted me almost more than being rejected.

"So, yeah, I'm fine with whatever consenting adults want to do in the privacy of their own homes. If it makes them happy, then, its a good thing. For what its worth, though, I sized you up to be much more well rehearsed at dealing with healers that were sappy, drippy, overly naïve until you didn't meet their expectations. I'd rather just be straight up about it."

Shylock wasn't sure Lupin did use his coldness as a tool, unless he was using it on him for some reason. He'd always just assumed the man had terrible bedside manner.

"Good," Shylock replied. "Just so we're clear."

He wasn't sure what Lupin was getting at with his comment about sappy healers. Shylock didn't know many healers who weren't his parents' students, but none of them were ever sappy and if they were naive it was only because they underestimated their charges.

"I don't have a lot of experience at dealing with other healers," he said, looking confused. "Not outside of Hogwarts, anyway."

Ashcroft had typically been guarded and closed, but this time he seemed to be more resistant and, at the same time, seeking to find out that Robert wasn't going to live up to whatever picture was forming in the young man's head. The threat was in whatever he wasn't admitting. As lovely as this two step was, all the dancing wasn't going to make Ashcroft feel any better. Not to mention that continuing to try to pull answers out of him one inch at a time was not feeling like a respectful approach, as much as Robert believed in letting the patient set some of the tone.

"Look," he said, "I'm not here to be your adversary. The more you avoid whatever it is that's either bugging you about yourself, or what's bugging you in something else, the faster you dance around it. And you're never going to know the answers to what you came here for unless you get around to the questions."

Shylock just blinked.  While he knew now that Lupin wasn't so awful as he'd first assumed, and he'd never seen the man as an adversary as such, but he was still wary of him.

But he had explained why he was here.  Robert just hadn't noticed, or understood or something the first time.

Shylock took a deep breath and bit the inside of his cheek before he began to speak.

"I've... done a lot of stuff," he said slowly.  He wasn't going to elaborate on what that stuff was.  Lupin could surely figure most of it out for himself.

"I've never had the same high I got just from getting through a day without eating.  And I shouldn't be getting withdrawals from forcing myself to eat a meal."

Ugh, even talking about it made him nauseous.

"That certainly isn't a pleasant place to be in," he said. It wasn't a statement of judging him. It was with some small modicum of understanding. Doing things, whether small or large, that were sometimes toxic and yet feeling unavoidable.

"The symptoms make sense to me," he said. It wasn't the easiest to deal with, but the course that Ashcroft appeared to be on was certainly destructive. "I understand why its happening, but, we do need to take another direction very soon." He was going to first have to deal with the reliance on the high.

"There are a number of potions that I can create, certainly, that would reduce the withdrawal. It isn't without its downside, though. I can't rightly just supply them and not know how these will specifically affect you, since your heath is compromised so much already. We might be able to deal with the both issues at the same time, if you're willing to stay to try it." He couldn't exactly come out and say he was going to temporarily allow him to get high, but in all reality, it was far safer to let him do it in a safe way, if he would accept it.

Shylock could almost see where this was leading. Almost, because there was always the minute chance that he could be wrong. But stay and try it? Shylock was sure that under that oh, so collected exterior, Lupin was dying to find out as much as he could about the "dark energies" he'd felt in Shylock's system that one time.

But by now, Shylock couldn't bring himself to care. It wasn't like he was going to tell Lupin anything. It wasn't even as though he could.

It sounded strange to hear his health described as compromised so much. Physically, he was far better now than when he'd first seen the healer. Yet Robert seemed to think he was doing much worse.

Shylock had a feeling he knew how this was going to work.

"What are the regulations, if I agree?" he asked.

"Fair question, but nothing insidious, I promise," Robert shrugged. Insidious things took time, and he simply didn't have the time for plotting and planning ways of taking advantage of Shylock. Besides, he preferred dealing with people above board anyway and Ashcroft wasn't exactly leaping into trusting him. Understandable.

"I would brew up the potion as soon as possible, and once you start it, it would give us time to monitor how your system tolerates it. Shouldn't interfere with your current medicine, but I want to be sure. And, I do need to be able to make sure you can deal with the side effects." Well, just how high was this going to make him? Couldn't have him running amuck if Robert didn't know if he'd be in his right mind, could he? He needed to know how it was affecting him.

"If it goes well, the potion should make it a bit easier for you to eat. But, what you eat and how much and when are things I'd prefer for us to work together on when you start to feel like doing it."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Shylock replied hesitantly.

Now that he was actually committing to this, he was hesitant. There was still something else he was worried about.

"But if you're monitoring me," he frowned. "Does that mean I'll be stuck here?"

It wasn't so much that Shylock was worried about being in the hospital. He'd practically grown up in a biology lab. Whether they'd allow him visitors was another thing. It was almost certain Monroe would start sticking his nose in as soon as he found out, and he would find out. Not to mention how Selwyn would react.

"That depends on how you define 'stuck,' I suppose," Robert said. "I plan on helping you with the metabolic instabilities that are making you ill.  In order to do that, I have to also minimize your symptoms. The potion I plan to use will stabilize that, but its very likely that it will cause you to have some of the same sort of 'high' that you've been experiencing. Ironically, some that have used this potion have experienced the sort of high you describe when they resume trying to eat, rather than when they avoid it. Its an odd sort of flip that I can't pretend to entirely understand. Nor can I neutralize that odd side effect from the potion. It just comes with it and I can't entirely explain why. I just know that it seems to have helped some people. Its worth a try. As I see it, you may find it worth the gamble.

"It doesn't really appear to require the patient to be quite as rigid or meticulous with diet so long as they're at least attempting to be somewhat reasonable. That gives us lots of room to negotiate what you might or might not feel like eating.  

"And because it will probably be new ground for you, I need you here. I will give you every choice in your treatment I possibly can, though. What specifically are you concerned about?"