Life is pain

If Shylock was being truly honest with himself he would have admitted that he wanted to punish Selwyn just a bit. It wasn't as though he was really attracted to Lily, not on any level beyond the platonic, and perhaps not even that. But Selwyn's presumption recently irritated Shylock more than he was willing to say. Literally; the tension at his place ever since Selwyn had moved in was almost unbearable.

Shylock was not being honest with himself, however, let alone anyone else. As he stood in line at the cafe, he knew one of the reasons he was there was because he was putting off going home for as long as possible. And if someone had asked why he invited Lily along, well, he was intrigued by the Potter girl.

That part was true, though. He couldn't figure out why she interested him, because he wasn't interested romantically and certainly not sexually; she looked a bit too much like Destrey for that.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by the overly cheerful greeting of the barista. She had an accent, which explained her apparent happiness.

"I'll have a latte, Lily?"

She typically wouldn't have accepted an invitation out simple because... she didn't really go out. She had little interest in putting herself into a position where she could be recognized, for either deed or name, and no company had ever seemed worth the risk unless it ended in a transaction that gave her the substances that made the getting home easier.

But a lot had changed for her, and in just a matter of days. Internally, the changes were still occurring, new thoughts edging out the old, new feelings growing where dead ones decayed. And she couldn't help but feel that this happy little consolation was an excuse to try to make her life a little more functional. Life had been hard, but now she had this, and she wasn't sure she wanted all of the other complications bleed over and... and complicate it.

Besides, it made sense. Shylock seemed to be willing to go along with the therapy without becoming a poster child, so he was as good as an ally within the group as anyone else. She wasn't going to find one in her cousin, and the Grimm girl didn't seem to have any use. Besides, Shylock has a clever way about him.

"Chamomile tea. No sugar."

She drummed her fingers on the counter, realizing she had no clue how to keep up a casual conversation. She had never seen much use in it, and she had never bothered to worry if she offended someone by staying quiet. So, she supposed some sort of observation might be... nice.

"This place is cheery."

Well, that came out more deadpan than was probably appropriate.

He paid for their drinks, grabbed the table number and found them a seat a little bit off from the other patrons. It was a sunny day and most of them were gathered around the windows.

Although, Shylock had to admit, he was a little bothered by the way Lily ordered her drink without sugar. Who put sugar in herbal tea? Were the rumours about the Weasley family really true? Were they not only blood traitors (there was no shame in that) but actual red-haired barbarians?

"So-"

He was about to try to lure Lily out of her sulk, or whatever was wrong with her, when she spoke. It was sudden and awkward and was she possibly just following doctor's orders?

"Uh, yeah, if you like this whole manufactured, attempt to appeal to our target audience vibe," Shylock agreed. "I do, personally, it reminds me of home."

"Y'know if you're just here because your healer said you have to make more friends, that's okay. You don't have to talk or anything."

He considered telling her she didn't even have to be there, but that was probably going too far. Shylock was willing to do a lot of things he probably oughtn't but ever since he committed to getting well himself, lying to healers wasn't one of them.

She offered her thanks as he tipped the payment towards the barista, and she followed him, content to give over a bit of her self direction in this alien environment. It had been a long time since she had come out in public casually.

It was a good thing she was the Potter no one expected anything out of. The relative anonymity was welcome.

They were seated away from the main hub of conversation, leaving only the hum of voices and the twangs of the acoustic music that seemed to be built into the framework of every coffee shop. She felt inner conflict over where to put her hands and where to look, but they quite naturally folded into her lap as her eyes trailed across the art work.

Shylock's tone shifted and it was this that sparked the bravery within her to actually look him in the eye. She felt herself deflate but she knew herself well enough to know that she was probably staring back with that stoney look that was only too natural.

And then it softened.

"No, no," she said, her voice conceding his right to feel that way. "I mean, it helps, you know. But I, um... I'm actually trying now. Trying to get better and not be some strange recluse." She winced, because she wasn't really making it seem better. "I wanted to. I just... haven't really had friends in a long time."

Shylock made a noise of agreement.  Much as his appearance made it seem as though he was courting attention, making friends wasn't a skill he'd ever really honed.

"I think that's what the group is for," he said. "To provide peer support, and like, people who have some idea of what you're going through."

"Because your other friends won't get it, you know."

Shylock wasn't sure how far along the recovery process Lily was, but from their first interaction, he'd been assuming it wasn't far along at all. Before now she'd seemed reluctant, and reluctance was something Shylock associated with people who weren't really ready to change.

It was just how things were. He had gone through plenty of half-hearted attempts to get well before he'd faced the fact that he couldn't do it alone.

So it seemed reasonable to warn her. Especially since she said she hadn't had friends in a long time. New friends could almost be worse than old ones. At least old friends had seen the damage, and could see how far you'd come.

Lily felt like he was trying to help her, trying to express a sense of camaraderie and understanding. Because she did understand that she suffered from a disease, and that her mindset could only truly be understood by someone who shared it. She knew how scary she could get, how difficult it was to understand.

It wasn't something she wanted to be reminded of. Not now that she had someone, a new person, someone she would rather not see the back of. And that was a fear she had, one she hadn't fully considered because she was fairly solitary.

Her hands cupped her tea and she stared at the steam that trailed upwards and dissipated into the room. She chewed on her lip and nodded. "Yeah..." She cleared her throat and looked up. "So... have you had that? Someone who just... didn't get it? Or didn't understand how much it affects you?"

Shylock sighed and gave her a rueful smile.

"I mean, nobody's ever going to really understand that," he said.  "It's more about whether they're willing to listen, or empathise, or whatever."

He dipped his finger in the foam of his drink and began drawing on the table in order to avoid looking Lily in the eye.

"Like, Monroe thinks he can understand anything he's read about, so he tries to organise my life and if I'm lucky he might ask how I am, but that's not because he cares, it's just what you do, y'know?  It's not like he wants a real answer."

"And then other people... When I'm with Selwyn I can feel how much he watches me and I know what he's wondering," he said, "but like, I know he has his own baggage to deal with, so that kind of makes it okay."

She wasn't sure why this made so much more sense than when Teddy tried to minister to her pain. Perhaps Teddy had been too close, and therefore too unwilling to admit that even he could not understand, could not help if she wasn't going to pull her weight too. The words sounded different when they weren't padded with a false idealism that rang as inherently wrong.

It wasn't as bad as she though, she supposed. She felt certain that Apollo could, and would, listen without judgment, and trust when understanding fell short. The not-knowing of it, though, the fact that she had always just removed herself from the situation when she got bad, so he had never seen her at he worse, that was still a worry.

She knew the feeling of people trying to fix her. She trusted that Teddy had attempted it out of true care for her, but it had always felt... foolish. As though a nice shower and a clean room could fix all the weird stuff inside. It just wasn't how it worked.

"The watching doesn't... frustrate you?" she asked. "I don't know. It's this weird line of wanting to feel normal and be treated normal but you don't feel normal."

Shylock gazed at Lily for a few moments.

"I was in the psych ward because I relapsed," he said slowly. "And I relapsed because of something that most people would say is normal. But to me, it wasn't normal. It felt weird because I've been living a not normal life since I was in sixth year."

"Anyway, no, it doesn't frustrate me," he answered her question more briskly. "He's never tried to fix me or anything, I just happen to know it worries him."

"I was kinda the overlooked child in my family, Lily. When I was a kid, and I mean really little before I started Hogwarts, I used to take off by myself a lot. So I'm not used to people paying that much attention."

"I assume there's someone watching out for you at home?"

Maybe that was why they needed the little group. That word. Normal. They all understood the idea that each person had their own definition of normal, and felt the separation from the typical definition. Maybe they just needed people who spoke their language.

That was what she didn't want, though. People worrying about her. The critical part of her chimed then stop giving them reasons to worry and she would have winced had she not been in public. But now that she felt that those really dark, scary times were over, she wished it was easy enough to forget them and live worry-free. Life was hard enough without the added stress of wondering when she was going to go off the deep end.

She scratched at a chip in the table. "Yeah, there is." She couldn't deny Teddy that. He had always been watching out for her. "I think I finally got them to stop. But I have someone... else, too. Someone checking in with me."

The problem was that H-word. She hadn't felt a place was home since... well, since her mother died.