Poisoned Rationality

"You know I can\'t stay here, Roger." Mello red-rimmed eyes regained some of their steel again. He sat in the second bedroom that had been opened up just so their warden could speak with them individually. "I\'m just not the sort of man to coming running home to... this."



"I wish I could stop you leaving."



"You\'re five and a half years too late for that attitude." Mello growled. "I stopped legally being your problem two years ago and I can\'t be here. Too much changed."



Roger shifted uncomfortably. "If you leave, then Matt will want to leave. In honesty, I don\'t think that either of you are in a position to work this out alone."



"Maybe." Mello bowed his head, hating himself for breaking again in Roger\'s presense. These tears weren\'t him. The feeling that he was someone\'s responsibility was not welcome. "But I\'m a big boy now. I will work it out." His mind supplied the question, how? Matt had always been quiet, but never so much with Mello. Last night, he had been. As soon as Mello had asked him to just lose himself in his games, Matt had sat on his own bed playing for hours. Once Mello hadn\'t been able to stand the jibing of his own mind and had asked for a cuddle. Matt had immediately dropped his game onto the bed, without pausing or saving it, and had opened his arms with a surrender that had frightened Mello. It still frightened him. He\'d released Matt and pressed the game into his hands again, not daring to ask for anything more, after that, other than a peck on the lips as a goodnight kiss once it grew late. Mello hadn\'t slept much, picking over the path that had brought him back into his Wammy\'s House bed. He didn\'t want to dissolve into self-pity, but right now, he felt the pathos wringing the energy out of his spirit. "I just need to get home and work it out."



"Matt says that you haven\'t been taking the pills that I prescribed for you." Roger arched his fingers, peering over them. He was amazed that Mello had stayed two nights as it was, though being sedated had certainly helped with the first. "I know that you like to be in control of your own thought processes, but they went awry. These will help you maintain your equilibrium. Help you think clearly again."



"Yes, and I bet that Matt is swallowing everything you put in front of him." Mello snapped back. "I\'m not happy about taking drugs."



Roger sighed, "Then I put to you this notion. Mihael, what would have happened differently if you had taken the anti-depressants that I prescribed to you last time you were here?"



Mello looked up sharply, then his gaze dipped into pensiveness. He had spent yesterday daytime with Matt trying to piece together everything that had happened. One of the most terrifying prospects to Mello, at the moment, was that it had all taken place over twenty days, not the two or three he knew about from his own memories. Everyone else had talked about \'nervous breakdown\' or \'mental collapse\'. Roger had dismissed these phrases as pop-slang for things which covered a spectrum of conditions in psychology. He had called it an \'anxiety collapse\'. \'The mind is such a wonderful thing,\' he had said, \'what you are considering to be a failure was actually your mind cushioning you from the pressure you had exerted upon yourself previously. If your mind really was to fail, you would not be able to survive with all of your primary functions closing down. Instead, your mind imploded just a little bit of itself in order to preserve its functionality for the long-term benefit.\'



Mello took the anti-depressants from his pocket and inspected them dubiously. "What will they do to me?"



"Ideally they will stop all of that chattering noise," Roger smiled inwardly at the look of surprise on Mello\'s features. He hadn\'t been told about that. "It\'s a common phenomenom after a mental trauma. It\'s just your thoughts settling themselves down again and your anxiety, which is a necessary part of your emotions, testing out the correct levels. That medication should enable you to keep calm and maintain your clarity. If any of the side-effects exhibit unbearably, then we can try something else."



"Are they addictive?"



"You only have a week\'s supply, Mello." He shook his head. "No, you will not become addicted."



"How about the ones you\'ve given Matt."



"Same."



"Why are we on the same? I thought that he didn\'t have an anxiety collapse." Mello glared, biting down a much stronger response.



"He is still anxious." Roger sighed. "Can I persuade you to leave Mail here when you go?"



Mello stared at him, then laughed incredulously. "You want me, after everything that has happened, after learning that he has abandonment issues, after all that I\'ve put him through," He rose from his seat. "You want me to walk out of this House, of all houses in the world, and leave Matt? What the Hell, Roger? You are asking me to not trust myself with his mind and yet it\'s you who comes out with crap like that?" He marched across the room. "No. I will not leave Matt at Wammy\'s House when I go."



"Mihael, hear me out." But the only response was the slamming of the door as Mello passed through it.



Mello paused in the corridor. The fire doors had been blackened out with overlapping pieces of A3 paper. Shapes could be distinguished through them, but nothing to determine what was happening. It was probably life as normal in the House. Young geniuses being driven to the edge of their endurance. He took several deep breaths and swallowed back the urge to cry again. As soon as he had regained his composure, he opened their bedroom door and entered it, closing out the house behind him. Matt was engrossed in a game on his bed, but he paused it as soon as he saw Mello.



Mello paced across to the bathroom and emerged with a glass of water. He counted out two anti-depressants, showed Matt and then popped them into his own mouth with a flourish. "That\'s me subdued. What did Roger say to you?"



"That he thinks you will be alright now." Matt replied quietly. "It\'s going to take you a long time to get over this, but you probably won\'t flip out that badly again."



"No, what did he say about you?"



"Me? I\'m just generally fucked." Matt lit a cigarette and held it between his fingers right in front of his mouth. He didn\'t lower it between drags.



Mello looked away. He stared out of the window for long minutes. "I\'m assuming that that isn\'t a direct quote."



"What?" Matt had been staring into space. It surprised Mello that he hadn\'t switched the game on again.



"What was Roger\'s actual prognosis for you?" Mello climbed up onto the windowsill. He seemed so out of place there, in his leather and with his scars. Too big to be contained within these four walls. He understood how the big cats felt in zoos now, aching, pacing, wanting to get out. Mello rolled his eyes, impatient with the look of reflective caution on his lover\'s face. "Let me spell this out. Roger told me that you are \'dangerously dependent\' upon me, to a neurotic level. Was he trying to freak me out?"



Matt smirked. "I\'ve always been neurotic. Nothing new there."



Mello turned to look out of the window again. "I\'m leaving and Roger wants me to leave you behind." He heard an intake of breath from the bed. "Here is my take on it. If you promise to get so absorbed in your games that you only hear me when I\'m screaming at you; and if you promise to leave cigarette butts on the bathroom floor, because you\'ve been smoking in the bath and you forgot to pick them up; and if you promise to have a smart-arse response to every stupid thing that comes out of my mouth; and if you promise to bite my head off if I dare to say hello before your first cigarette of the day; and if you promise to make me laugh when I\'m being too serious; and if you promise to bug me with fucking internet speak and coming out with ridiculous priorities, like the shop is shutting in ten minutes, but you want to gain a level, before you go and get the milk or something; and if you promise to annoy the crap out of me with beeping when I\'m trying to concentrate; and..."



Matt stood up off the bed and started to pack a bag. "I\'m the man for the job."



"And if you promise to stop being so fucking scared of me, I\'ll take you with me." The words hung in the air for a long time. Too long. Mello was exerting an iron will over his emotions not to start crying again. He watched Matt looping the leads to his XBox controller and dropping it into the rucksack. Mello had to move his leg, as the redhead crawled underneath the desk to unplug things there, then again as he reversed to add them to his belongings. "Well?"



"What?" Matt stiffened by the wardrobe.



"You heard me. Don\'t give me this shit."



"What do you want me to do? Swear on a Bible?" Matt shrugged, throwing two stripey shirts, one in white and the other in red, onto the bed. He bundled up the last of his duty-free multipacks of cigarettes and pushed them into the bag too. He stared down at the bed. "Mello, if we\'re going, will you please get the fuck off the windowsill and pack your stuff too?" He looked back with a sassy smirk on his face. "Or am I supposed to be doing that for you?"



Mello smiled. "That\'s better. Though the effect is a bit ruined by how much you\'re shaking." He leapt down and loitered beside his lover. "Matt, can I kiss you please?"



Matt frowned, then slowly turned to look at him. "Since when have you asked?"



"Since I started respecting your personal space."



"Well fuck that. Just kiss me." Matt finished pushing his clothes around the games and waited. Mello was being coquettish again. "What?"



"I\'m too embarrassed to now." He flashed a nervous smile and indeed his cheeks did appear to be a little pink. "Plus Roger\'s watching."



Matt bent his head, laughing quietly. Then he too looked at the camera and blushed. "He might get off on it."



"How about you kiss me?"



"No." Matt pointed. "Roger\'s watching." Mello stifled a giggle behind his hand. It felt strange to be amused again, like it was a new emotion which had yet to find its place amongst the rest. Plus it felt wrong to be laughing, after what he\'d done. The hand fell and worry etched itself onto his face. "Ok." Matt leaned in and cupped Mello\'s cheeks. "But if we\'re on Candid Camera, let\'s make it a proper movie kiss." Matt\'s arm dropped down to coil around Mello\'s waist and he bent him backwards, supporting his head and kissing him passionately on the lips. Then Matt\'s strength gave out and he dropped Mello onto the bed. "Sorry, clumsy ending."



"You\'re still so weak." Mello reached out to touch him. "You didn\'t mention food. Did I starve you?" His gaze took on a haunted look again, as implications pricked.



"I was immobile for nearly three weeks. My muscles need a bit of toning, that\'s all." Matt smiled down, kindly. "Mell, don\'t go into that dark place again." Incomprehension stared back. "Mihael, don\'t do it." He watched Mello blink and look back sadly. "What just happened?"



"Sorry Matt. I\'m ok." The blond uncoiled from the bed and took the other bag from the wardrobe. He was aware of Matt\'s eyes upon him as he moved around the room packing the items that someone, probably the redhead, had deemed essential for a few days away from home. There wasn\'t much. He didn\'t need a whole games system to sustain him. Mello bent at the bookcase, aware that many, if not all, of these had been left behind by himself years ago. Too much to carry back then. "Can we take all of my books please?"



"I don\'t see why not." They silently packed. In unspoken agreement, they were stripping the room of everything that had ever been their\'s. The resulting pile far outstretching the two bags in their possession for transporting them out. Matt called out to the camera. "Roger, please may we have some boxes?" He was sitting on the bed, having a cigarette break to cover up the fact that he physically needed a rest. Mello was crouching beside his bookcase, reading. "You ok, Mell? What are you readng?"



"\'Wuthering Heights\'." Mello showed him the cover. "This is what I\'d have said if I really had got you clipped. \'Mail Jeevas, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you - haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe - I know that ghosts have wandered the earth.\'" He rose from the floor, warming to his theatricals. "\'Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh! God! It is unutterable!\'" Mello touched Matt\'s chin, peering into his startled face. "\'I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!\'"



Matt blinked. There were many themes in that which were still horrifically raw. It was hard to believe that this was Mello\'s gallows humour on display. It felt more like a subconscious reminder that it had been himself, Mail Jeevas, who had destroyed Mello\'s beautiful mind. Matt nodded, accepting the verbal slap, and forced himself to recall the new rules. "So that\'s what you\'d have said, is it?" Matt made a grab for the book. He skimmed through, looking for a passage that he knew was in there. "Ok, here\'s what I should have said yesterday, when you were beating yourself up about ancient history."



"Oh yeah?" Mello settled down to hear it.



"Yeah." Matt found it. "\'You teach me how cruel you\'ve been - cruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Mello?\'" He paused. "Hold on. Wrong bit. Got it." Matt looked up, it was already memorised. "\'You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Lauren? Because misery, degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.\'"



Mello winced. "I deserved that." He peered at Matt and smiled apologetically. "I think the first time I ever knew I loved you, as more than a friend, I mean, was in this room. Quoting \'Wuthering Heights\' because of that damned project I was doing. " He pushed back a lock of red hair, watching the softening of Matt\'s green eyes behind the goggles. Without a need for the book, Mello quoted, "\'He moves me differently; and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I\'d never see him again. You\'ll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so, if I try to describe the thousand forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies.\'" Mello shrugged. "I thought I could stave off Hell by leaving you. I\'ll not make that mistake again." He patted Matt\'s leg and returned to the bookcase. A second later there was a scowl. "Lauren?" Mello laughed.



"Yes." Matt\'s responded tersely.



Mello rose again, staring at his lover\'s back. Watching as Matt sorted through his own books. He appeared to be leaving more than he was taking and Mello resolved to add the rejects to his own pile. They were taking everything, regardless of whether Matt actually wanted them. "You know, for a stupid moment there, I thought you sounded jealous. Jealous of a sixteen," he remembered that she had driven a car, "presumably seventeen year old," he paused for emphasis, "girl." There was silence, but he could see the tension in Matt\'s posture. "Right. I don\'t know how to break this to you. Matt, I\'m gay."



Now he solicited a reaction. Matt lifted his head and stared. "I thought you said you weren\'t."



"I was lying." Mello smirked. "Lauren does not move me differently." They were interupted by a short knock at the door, but Mello had seen the hardening of Matt\'s mouth before he\'d got up to answer it. He took custody of the boxes, thanked the caretaker and sat on the floor to fill them. "Do you honestly think that I fancy Lauren?" Matt just shrugged and Mello started to feel irritated by this. "Matt just fucking tell me."



Mello had expected there to be a long-drawn out teasing of information, maybe lasting days before he got bored. Matt patently didn\'t want to say anything and that usually meant it would be easier to get blood out of a stone, unless Mello truly wanted to know. Then he would just rage or seduce until he got the information. This time though, the words gushed from the redhead immediately and the goggles misted with tears. "I tried for weeks to get you back and she," he spat out the pronoun with venom, "just came along, gave you chocolate and suddenly you\'re ok." He punched the bed beside him with frustration. "I couldn\'t get you chocolate, Mello. I couldn\'t move!"



"Oh." Mello commented blankly. He placed \'A Tale of Two Cities\' onto the pile and glanced back. Matt was crying again. Conflicting instincts said to both leave him alone and to hug him close. "Only I was under the impression that the reason I snapped back was because a gorgeous genius had booby-trapped his computer to send out two SOSs, if he hadn\'t logged onto his server for twenty days. It was also my understanding, gleaned from Roger, that if said genius hadn\'t played the game perfectly for those twenty days, I would probably have put a bullet through my own head before the cavalry even came." He crawled across the floor, stopping a couple of feet away from the redhead. "The chocolate was just a bonus."



Matt made a Herculean effort to calm down, rolling away from the bed and patting down his pockets for cigarettes. He couldn\'t find them and whimpered. Mello found them on the bed and handed them over. "Sorry, Mell."



"Mother of God, you have nothing to be sorry about!" Mello gasped. "I\'ve got the feeling that if I apologised to you from now until the day we die, it would not be enough."



"Yeah. Well don\'t." Matt breathed in nicotine. "That would make you awfully annoying."