Poisoned Rationality

Roger admitted Mello and Matt into his office with barely concealed joy at seeing them again. His generation of Englishmen were not given to hugs nor other emotional affectations, but he showed it anyway in pronounced cordality and hand-shakes. However, he couldn't hold back from patting Matt's back, as the redhead trailed after his friend, upon the invitation to sit in the easy chairs. There could be no conversation without tea, so Roger busied himself making it. As he did so, he cast back pleasantries on safe subjects, like the weather and traffic, which neither of his former charges appeared inclined to engage in. Finally, he reached the point he had been striving for since he first saw them at the gate. "Near lost sight of you in Japan. I'm so glad you are both alright."



"Alright is so relative, don't you think?" Mello growled. "But yes, perky and bright as little Spring lambs." He placed his chocolate on the coffee table in front of him and glanced at Matt. The redhead already had his handheld game out and was playing it. "The pair of us."



Roger watched them, picking up on the little clues for ammunition. There wasn't a child at Wammy's House today who could stretch his mind like this generation had and he half-relished the inevitable sparring to come. First he noticed their positioning. Though the easy chairs seemed informal, a friendly place upon which the children could feel safe, there was one armchair slightly higher than the others. It was barely perceptible as such, but sent out a subtle message of domination, particularly as it was the only one placed at the head of the low table. This was the one which Roger usually occupied, though, annoyingly, Mello was sitting in it now. In contrast, Matt was pressed back amongst the cushions of the long settee, he would have seemed smaller even if he hadn't contrived to give the impression that he wasn't really there. Roger deduced that the impetus for their being here, surprisingly, was Mello.



"Here we are. A nice pot of tea and a hot chocolate with extra sprinkles." Roger set the tray down and smiled at them both. "I am very proud of your roles in catching Kira. You both did exceptionally well."



Mello smiled, but his eyes were cold above it. Matt muttered a 'thanks', but never lifted his attention from the game. When Mello spoke, it was business-like. "We want everything you've got on Matt. Material and document archives. Anything that tells us about what happened in Spain, plus psychiatric records from his time at Wammy's House."



Matt looked up sharply at the last request. It clearly hadn't been part of their preliminary agreement. Roger felt himself bristle, both on Matt's behalf and, if he was honest, his own. The child Mello had filled this office with his presense, but the adult took over. It was a show of testosterone. The young stag come to tax the old stag. Mello should not be sitting in Roger's armchair, just as before he should not have been sitting behind his desk. The elderly man was far too professional to rise to such blatant challenges to his authority. However, he decided that it was time that someone said no to Mihael Keehl. "Mello, I cannot release anything to you. You may access your own records, but not that of a fellow."



"Matt is sitting right here." Mello responded, equally firmly. "You're releasing them to him, not me."



Roger poured his tea from the pot. "Yet you are the one asking for the records, while Matt appears to be more interested in his electronic game."



There was the tiniest flash of a glance from the redhead. He airily interjected. "He can have what he wants. I give consent... oh crap!" The sentiment was lost in rapid clicking and an intent focus upon the handheld game. Mello's smirk was entirely triumphant, a slight incline of the head suggesting that Roger should just run along and retrieve them, like a good chap.



Roger added milk to his tea, peering up beneath his eyelashes to watch Matt. There was a deep bruising on the boy's jawbone and there had been a stiffness to his gait before he'd sat down. Several years ago, Watari had signed a piece of paper accepting custody of and responsibility for Mail Jeevas. The actual signatory, at the time, may have been Wammy, but if duty was to be dispensed in the present hour, then that fell to Roger Ruvie. It might be unbefitting of the guardian to lock horns with Mello on his own behalf, but now one of his orphans needed defending. The child had always followed his blond friend's lead, but every time Roger had seen them together since, it appeared to him to have developed into something more. Roger sat up a little bit straighter, set upon the defence of his charge. If there was to be a power struggle over Matt, then he was determined that it would be himself, not Mihael, who won. "Before I can release information like that, there will have to be a full psychiatric appraisal. Just to ensure that," he paused, improvising quickly, "the Board is satisfied that Matt is fully aware of the issues which may arise, and that the support infrastracture is in place to assist him with their resolution. Not to mention accessing his current soundness of mind and..." Roger forced himself to meet Mello's gaze, "whether or not it is the Board's belief that he has been coerced into this course of action."



"What?" Mello yelled.



Matt smirked. "Roger...." Then he fell silent, the fingers of both hands clicking in an apparently random pattern.



Roger's own hands widened. "So, you see, this is not something which can happen overnight. "I'm sorry, it's out of my hands."



Mello glared incredulity, "What fucking Board?"



"Yes!" Matt grinned. "Sorry, that was just a bit of an inconvenient moment to need some input from me." He gestured vaguely towards the game. "Roger, word to the wise, despite what happened in Japan, if the name Near crops up in connection with this rather surprising Board, then Mello will pull a gun on you and he will raid your nice archives. Please may I have my stuff?"



"Where did you get the bruise on your face, Matt?" Roger asked. Matt stared steadily at him, smirking like he got a joke that no-one else did, but Mello looked away. Roger noted it from the periphery of his vision. "As I expected." Their erstwhile guardian turned in his seat until he was fully facing the blond. "You call yourself a Christian man and yet..."



Matt piped up. "The Epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 33." He stood up and sat at Mello's feet, smiling defiantly at Roger. "It's all good. Please may I have my stuff?"



Roger frowned, then stood unsteadily. He leaned heavily on his walking stick towards a bookshelf, then needed both hands to remove a large Catholic Bible. Mello leaned forward, covering Matt's head in his arms and hiding both of their faces behind a curtain of blond and red hair. He whispered, "What's Ephesians 5.33?"



Across the room, there was a catch to Roger's breathing and he turned back to survey them, just as Matt responded to Mello's question with a kiss. "I know that you pair are trying to shock me. Don't think that I haven't seen it all before." He tapped the book that sat upon the top of the bookshelf. "I would have thought that the more pertinent verses were those above that one, Matt. Verses 25 to 31."



Matt shrugged. "I personally prefer 33."



Mello sighed and extracted himself from the chair and his lover. He crossed the room in a few strides and bent over the Bible. Roger placed his hand over the verses near the bottom of the page. and said pointedly. "Please read it aloud, Mello. It is Sunday."



The blond sighed loudly again, but read, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy," Mello paused, "and without blemish." He glanced at Roger, who nodded for him to go on. Suddenly Mello felt like a child again, being directed in his studies. He frowned, but read on, "So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church: because we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh."



Matt joined them at the bookcase, peering over Mello's arm. "Oops, I got the wrong verse. It's 5.22." As both men read, 'Wives, submit to your husband, as to the Lord', the redhead reached out to turn the doorhandle right beside him and stepped through into the room behind. "In here, Mell." Mello found him, playing his game again, leaning up against a wall of cabinets displaying the letter 'M'.



Roger called from the doorway, unable to match the speed of the younger man. "Mihael, Mail, stop, please. Let me speak." He came into view, moving arthitically and seeming very frail. "This is my job. I take you children in and I do what I can to help you cope. Geniuses need a special king of handling and so do the traumatised. Every single child that has passed through my care has been both." He paused to catch his breath. "You think you are so clever coming in here with your guns and your smart words, but I am good at my job." He leaned against the 'N' section. "I have to make difficult decisions every single day. Ones which may make or break my charges. Let me give you an example of this." He pointed towards Mello's dangling rosary. "With the utmost respect for your faith, Mello, I myself am an atheist. I have a child out there, who was raised in a particularly firebrand interpretation of God. God is supposed to be good, omnipresent and protective. However, this child has survived an intensely traumatic experience which, incidentally, killed the parents. I sat right on that settee, cuddling the little one in my lap, being asked to answer questions about why God let this happen. What would you do?"



Mello bowed his head. "Do you want me to have a word?"



"No, I want you to share your wisdom with me. Do I take away that Christian belief and start again with a clean slate? The child's world is shattered as it is and currently that faith is more hurtful than a solace." Roger leaned forward on his stick. "Matt, what would you do?"



"Let them speak to Mello." Matt shrugged. "He's been there and got the t-shirt."



"Let me consider it." Roger took a deep breath, surveying them both with long searching looks. "Another one. Possibly the youngest child we have ever had in our institution, already terribly wounded, mentally and physically. He is orphaned but has a guardian. We are aware that this guardian is beating him and, without his presense, we could help the child. What would you do?"



Mello raised his eyebrows, "If I was you or if I was me?"



"I am interested in your opinions." Roger replied sternly. "If it was you."



Mello nodded. "I'd probably risk life and limb," he took a step, "by leaning over the game like this and taking the child and..." He kissed Matt hard on the lips, then withdrew with a smile. "The Catholic child was me. The battered child is him. You gave it away when you said 'the youngest child ever in Wammy's', because you once told me that that had been Matt. You said that me and him were the only children ever to come here under the age of five." He smiled into Matt's eyes. "You didn't suss it? Slow today, aren't we, Matty?"



Matt shrugged and pulled his game back up to rest it on Mello's chest. His character had just remained still, with no loss of life or level. He continued to play it, still held by his lover. "It's the drawer at the bottom, next to my foot."



"Thank you." Mello crouched to open it, inspecting the contents without commentary from either of those who might have known why each item had been kept. Only when he picked out the vacuum wrapped bundle did Roger move to his side.



"Mihael, you are opening a can of worms."



"I know. It's what I do best." Mello shrugged. "Thank you for buying a Catholic Bible just to deal with me. That couldn't have been an easy situation to deal with."



Roger blinked. He laid a hand on the blond's shoulder and it wasn't thrown off.