Poisoned Rationality

The three men were back in the main office now, Mello carrying lever-arched folders bursting at the seams to place them next to the two boxes already beside his armchair. He surveyed them dubiously. "There\'s a lot of paper. I was expecting it to all be electronic."



"These are Matt\'s records." Roger commented mildly. "The last thing we are going to do is place the majority of them onto a computer\'s hard drive." A thought occurred. "Your\'s are in paper form too, Mello."



Mello smiled despite himself and sat down to rifle through the headings. He glanced at Matt, but the redhead was back on the settee, feet up on the coffee table, engrossed in his game. "Roger, this is going to get heavy. Matt will be smoking. If we let him go outside to do it, he will wander off." His blue eyes fixed upon the older man. "Though you have made your feelings about this clear, I know that the psychologist in you is chomping at the bit to see what happens next. From just the bit I skimmed over in there, you had a lot of questions and hypotheses."



Matt smirked, "Nice to learn I\'m so interesting."



"Matt?" Mello said, not continuing until the redhead looked up from his game. "I love you." He smiled reassurance and picked up a journal at random. "Is there a good place to start?"



Roger took a chair beside him and lifted out a blue, hard-backed tome. "Here."



Mello skimmed through the notes. It was the psychiatric assessment. There were clear signs of neglect, some pointing to possible neglect in infancy. Abandonment issues. The symptoms were listed, along with anedotel evidence: withdrawal; low self-esteem; unusually small for his age; difficulty concentrating; tendency to steal food and to stash it in hidey-holes; a terrified reaction to being picked up; followed by a clinginess towards catering operative, Sally Goodall, after she allowed him to stay in the kitchen, talking to him without trying to touch him. He had apparently followed her around for weeks and the easiest way to convince the infant to do anything was to co-opt the young girl\'s assistance. A scribbled note, in Roger\'s handwriting, added \'extremely low levels of oxytocin in Mail\'s urine sample. Autistic?\' Mello looked up, "Oxytocin?"



"It\'s a mammalian hormone. A neurotransmitter." Roger was watching Matt playing his game, ignoring them. "Its effects on the brain govern trust, bonding, sexual arousal, courage, empathy, connection with others and the ability to learn."



There was a huge sigh. "Yes, Roger, I know what oxytocin is!" Mello held up the notes. "But why would there be low levels of it in a three year old?"



Northern Spain in the 1990s. The neighbourhood had once been destroyed in the Civil War and rebuilt again. The elderly had finally grown old enough to have the time to sit and remember lost loves and family. The younger ones however, cared more about the bombs exploding these days. The railway line taken out only a few months before. So arbitary, it had seemed, just because a politician had been a passenger on the train and the lie of the land was suitable for ambush. Paramilitary Basque separatists in their streets and hiding in their hills. Some believed that they were still there, pointing at the evidence of guns glimpsed in supermarkets and graffiti appearing on the walls: \'Sasoi ilunak datoz... borrokak aurrera darrai!\' The axe and the snake beside it. It was a time of waiting for the parliament or even Juan Carlos to do something, anything. Until then, if there was ever to be a hope of survival for their town, then no-one asked a thing.



No-one asked Cisco especially, because there was a crazy look in his eye that said that the things he\'d suffered, the things he\'d seen, had been one step more than most. Most of all no-one asked if there had ever been a pretty wife to go with the silent toddler in his possession, nor asked why a baby never cried. A glowering look from those deep green eyes, that ate you alive with a glance, sparked sentient alarm bells that stifled questions. If guilt pricked, then what could they do? They were a town in crisis and no-one was safe.



"He probably wasn\'t nutured as a toddler, maybe even as a baby. By which I mean not given cuddles and kisses. Matt had a great deal of difficulty reacting socially to others when he arrived here." Roger was clearly uncomfortable answering these questions. Mello carried on reading, noting the dismissal of autism and the wonder at how the oxytocin levels did not appear to be hindering Matt\'s learning development, though it did have strong physical and mental effects. Then a name blazed out of the page. \'Has formed an attachment with Mihael Keehl. Both vasopressin and oxytocin levels have risen. Consider allowing them to share a room? Mail seems also have a calming influence on Mihael.\' Mello grinned up at Roger, showing him the entry. Roger sighed. "They never stabilized, Mello. They rose slightly. Two years ago, they were almost at the same level as when he first arrived. This is why he is using the nasal spray, to help regulate it."



Mello\'s head bowed over the page, his mind calculating the implication that the levels had again dipped after he had left Matt at Wammy\'s. Then final words penetrated and he looked sharply up again. "Nasal spray? Matt was aware of this?" He looked from Roger to Matt, then back at the journal, flicking through for mentions of the hormones. He found them. "Right. Let me get this clear. You told him that he had a chemical imbalance that could impair his learning. You told somebody, who spent half of his childhood trying to get out of studying, that there was leeway because of something physical?" He slammed the journal down onto his lap. "Are you a complete idiot? You told someone with an IQ of..." Mello flicked to the statistics he\'d glimpsed at the front and stopped dead. "Wow!"



Matt finally reacted. He leapt over the coffee table and snatched the journal out of Mello\'s hands. "Before you let him read another single thing, what\'s his IQ?"



Mello yelled, "Give me that back! And go and get a urine sample."



Matt dashed around to the other side of Roger, holding the book in the air. "Oxytocin can be artificially altered. It doesn\'t mean anything. Roger, his IQ is higher than mine, isn\'t it?"



"Yes." Roger sighed. "It is higher than yours."



"Not by a three year old, it can\'t." Mello sucked on his chocolate. "Abandonment issues. That\'s what threw you in Japan, after Takada and... all that. You thought I was going to leave you."



Matt stared, bowed his head and threw the journal back. Mello caught it with one hand. Roger shook his head. "Matt wouldn\'t be able to comprehend that he wouldn\'t be abandoned. The oxytocin again." He closed his eyes as a cigarette was lit above his head. "Please open a window, Matt." He watched Mello watching Matt. "He will never trust you to come home. Each time you leave, he will see it as forever. There is nothing in his emotional personality nor, dare I say, experience, that equips him for the belief that you might return. There is nothing you can do about it, Mello, other than be with him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Unless, of course, he is using his nasal spray."



"What the Hell is this?" Cisco\'s drunken gaze found the excrement on the floor. "Dirty, little shit." Then he walked over the debris of their room and out into the backgarden. Firing his gun at cans and drinking from another. Rubbish was strewn across the sizeable yard, rising into slag-heaps in parts. The neighbours had learned not to complain. They could smell it, but barely see it beyond the overgrown hedges, and that stench only mingled with that which drifted across from the quarry.



Left alone in the room, Mail climbed until he could lever himself onto the settee. His nappy had fallen off two days ago, after it had been on for three days previous to that, and his legs and bottom were sore. His stomach growled, as he watched his papá through the window, shooting with wild cries.



"I\'m not convinced by this oxytocin thing." Mello frowned. "His learning was never impaired and," he smiled, "he\'s never had trouble with sexual arousal." He flicked through the pages again. "Though it would explain a lot. If you can pick and choose the symptoms."



Roger turned to survey the redhead at the window. "I have to say that I am thoroughly uncomfortable with this. I should not be discussing this with you in the room, Mello." He straighten. "I would protect you in the same way."



Mello shrugged. "So he can\'t physically cope with cuddles, kisses, trust... love?" He rose from the chair and crossed to the window. "Hello gorgeous." Mello frowned as Matt jumped as soon as he touched him. He hadn\'t been expecting that to happen at all. "What the...?"



Matt looked flustered. "Sorry, I was miles away. What?" He looked down at Mello\'s hand on his arm. "Sorry, I wasn\'t paying attention. What?"



"Can I raise your oxytocin levels a bit?" Mello smiled, leaning in. Matt looked at Roger, then the desk, before fixing his gaze on Mello again. "What were you thinking about?"



Matt blushed. "Roger\'s watching and everything. Is it like a fantasy? Only..."



Mello bowed his head, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. "I meant a cuddle." He hugged the redhead to himself and was relieved when he was held in return. "There\'s nothing wrong with you that I can see. What were you thinking of when I came over? I mean before I startled you."



"That I was hungry." He pointed to the pile of papers. "Are you going to read all of those? Only I could nip down the chip shop..."



Roger called across. "I\'m sure that the kitchens could accommodate a meal for you both."



Mello nodded. "That would be lovely. Thank you, Roger." He read the book over Matt\'s shoulder. Autism was being mentioned again, this time over clothing. "Mmm... Mail has developed a fixation on certain clothing."



"Eh?" Matt slipped out of Mello\'s arms, so he could flick his cigarette out of the window.



"Striped pirate shirts, jeans and orange goggles, apparently." Mello replied, incredulously. "I don\'t believe a word of it." His gaze took in that precise uniform still clothing his lover now. "Is that a pirate shirt?"



"No, just a normal shirt." Their eyes met and Matt shrugged. "Is there a problem?"



Mail tore into the plastic with his teeth, until the packaging came apart in his hand. All the time, his eyes never left the monitor and its \'please wait loading\' message. A pair of orange goggles fell into his lap and he absently picked them up. They flew around, spinning by the plastic on his finger, before the image on the screen finally changed to the gameplay menu.



Through the tinted lenses, the formerly dull day became sunny. Softer hues surrounded him. Outside the window, the leaves of the beech tree turned into the most vibrant green. Inside, the peach of the wallpaper seemed warmer, more homely. The whole world appeared to him as a kinder, brighter place. Only the clouds, floating above the trees outside in a tiny pocket of sky, were intensified. Defined, little flecks of dawn in them, despite the mid-afternoon hour.



Mail moved his head slowly backwards and forwards, enjoying the changed environment. Eventually, his gaze focused upon the bed across the room and Mihael upon it. He had deeper highlights in his blond hair, burning auburn, where none had been before; pale face reddened, as if his whole head projected out the fire inside. Mihael\'s fingers, tattooed with blue ink, now turned purple, bordering upon black.



The blond had been sighing pointedly for the ten minutes in which it had, so far, taken Mail to set up his game. Neither had spoken to the other, but the distraction from his homework was there nontheless. Watching the redhead now, his long fringe falling messily over childish goggles, his eyes wide behind them, Mihael gasped, "Oh! That\'s a good look."



Seemingly oblivious to the sarcasm, Mail separated out the words. As if his mind thought through orange-tinted lenses, emphasising the sunshine, fading out shadows, he heard the compliment. Mihael never praised anyone. He evaluated others against the benchmark of himself and either pointed out their deficiencies or else fell silent. Occasionally, he might utter something which might be seen as a positive appraisal, when viewed in a certain kind of light, but that was only about one of the older kids. Then it was only those considerably older, whose achievements Mihael had chance to equal, then master, at a much younger age. His presumed compliments were, therefore, more correctly contextualised as part of his thinking aloud, in an effort to work out just how they had done it.



"A good look?" Mail breathed, eyes wide, then blinking rapidly as he surveyed his attire. He had never given much thought to his appearance before. "The shirt or the goggles or my jeans?"



Mihael narrowed his eyes, sneering, "Oh! The whole ensemble. It just suits you so well."



Any other child in The Wammy House would have heard the slur. They would even now be imagining themselves through the filter of the Slavic boy\'s vicious mind and feeling the blow to their self-worth. Mail just heard praise as a bolt of lightning. "Thank you." He whispered and smiled, with a shuddering pleasure, into his blush and his game.



"No." Mello smiled. "No problem. Have you really been wearing variations on that theme since...?" He consulted the journal. "You were ten?"



"Dunno. I haven\'t really thought about it."



"I can\'t imagine you in anything else."



"Let\'s take up Roger\'s offer and get something to eat."