A/N: This is a spin-off of one of my fics "seduction of the innocent" (a usukus-centric fic) and tbh I can't remember anymore which of the two fics came to me first, since all I seem to be comfortable writing is usukus but geritager is like, my otp or something. LOL.

This scene here takes place during seduction of the innocent's chapter 3..that is also where this fic begins. There's really no need to read seduction of the innocent if ya'll not a fan of usuk, because I don't really mind, I made this fic in such a way that you won't be missing anything if you chose not to read it at all (And vice-versa, to the seduction of the innocent fans who saw this fic in passing), and mainly because seduction of the innocent had tons of red warning signs. Please take them seriously, if you still wanted to read it after seeing the tags.

This fic in comparison is much more vanilla, I swear...or not. We'll see.

WARNINGS for violence, blood, and mentions of torture. I'll make sure to keep posting and/or updating warnings as the chapters come up.

New York is a strange place.

In all the years Feliciano has lived his life in this big city, always bustling with life and people, New York has never ceased to amaze him. From its huge buildings that burn bright in the dark of night, illuminating the city in such a way that makes it seem like the city never sleeps to its people who seemed intent on keeping the tourists think that way.

Speaking of…

Feliciano finds his steps slowing into a complete halt-almost. He squints his eyes and walks closer to where this certain something is that people had found very interesting-enough to make them leave their posts in the city's ordinate routines-and notes with curiosity that the certain something he had been wondering has something to do with his restaurant.

Or maybe, this certain something is his restaurant.

He doesn't like pressing himself close to people who smell and breathe air so he settles with standing on his tiptoes, craning his neck and straining his eyes to get a look at his own restaurant that is in very high possibility of being severely damaged-considering the amount of crowd in the area, their phones raised and snapping pictures; the New York crime lab already at the scene, with the New York police nearby, talking to anyone who is willing to talk.

He frowns at the sight, one of his hands raising to hover over his head to protect his eyes from the sudden flare of the sun. His eyes flicker momentarily to the side-

His eyes widen.

Suddenly he finds himself running, crashing into the crowd with muffled screams of "excuse me! Let me through, I'm important!"

Then he crashes into something.

It was something huge, large, and probably muscle-bound too: things that Feliciano honestly find terrifying-terrifying enough that he couldn't be bothered to open his eyes, despite the fact that he had already broken into the crowd.

He freezes in his spot, eyes squinted shut. He was about to open his mouth to scream an apology, and probably prepare to be on his hands and knees to do so when a voice above him speaks, "And what makes you think you are important-" the word 'important' is almost hissed but the voice being deep as it is, it comes more as a cross between a growl and a hiss.

Even its voice is as terrifying as its owner and Feliciano's mind started running a mile a minute, drawing out imaginary faces with terrifying arms, it's hands huge enough to crush Feliciano's head like an egg.

"-to break into a crime scene?" It finishes. When Feliciano failed to reply in time, the voice sighs heavily. He flinches when he feels a heavy hand land on his shoulder, and only that.

He breathes, slowly through his nose and realises with a jolt that, yes, he had forgotten to breathe.

Snap out of it, Feliciano.

"…Sir?" The voice says, almost sighs out. The voice sounded a little bit tired, if not fatigued.

Feliciano almost feels bad for whoever this is.

So he breathes in, slowly, like how Antonio had always instructed him in these kinds of situations and slowly opens his eyes just a crack.

He was greeted by a corpse of a boy, its eyes wide and blown as they stare right at him, like they're telling him that 'this is all your fault,' and he yelps, jumping away.

It would have been all fine and good, if his feet didn't twist below him and he ended up crashing face first into the rough concrete. Some people close enough at least has some sense in them to move away from Feliciano's body as it slammed heavily but no one has the heart even bother catching him before he actually crashed.

"Ugh," Feliciano groans, feeling something warm gush out of his nose as he wrinkles them in disdain.

His brother is going to kill him later.

"Hey," A voice says. The same voice from before.

This time, Feliciano finally manages to see the face to accompany that voice and that chest and the sight itself causes his limbs to go weak.

Eyes sharp like steel and cheeks so sharp Feliciano thinks he might cut himself trying to touch those even for a moment, and oh-he's handsome.

Just so lovely.

He finds his eyes wandering down his chest, eyes wide but trying not to be, curious to what he'll see next but then the voice causes him to snap his back up, to the handsome man's face.

For a moment, he was about to be distracted by that face again; those cheekbones can't be too perfect, can they? But then his eyes flicker back the scene behind the man and-oh.

"Oh," He hears himself say, eyes turning down solemnly to the ground that rolls into the sight he had previously seen.

"He's so young…" He mutters, be it in sadness or disappointment, he couldn't quite tell. His eyes roam around the crime scene, the area already barricaded with police tapes and people from the crime lab-probably-their hands raised and meant to block curious spectators, pulling their camera phones out of the way. He sees two more bodies on the ground, their eyes wide open and lifeless, flickering every once in a while when their lenses were hit with the camera's flashes, courtesy of course, of the New York Crime Lab.

His remark had not gone unnoticed.

"You know that boy?" Feliciano's eyes flick back up to the man before him, who he belatedly realises is a member of the New York Police. Something akin to disappointment swells deep in his chest and he inhales, trying to clear it all out. Then he nods, slowly, in agreement, his head turning down.

"How would I not?" He sighs. He turns his sad eyes to the young, dead boys. "That's Arman," then he points to the other two, "and those are Erick and Aaron."

It doesn't sound like the right thing to say, when Feliciano notices the way the officer eyes him strangely after that. "And how would you know them?"

"They like to eat here when school's over. The food's so great they'd rather stay in school than cut classes so they could eat here all the time for free."

More scrutinizing stares plus the addition of bright blue eyes burning a hole through his head but it nods anyway, as if taking all Feliciano had stated all into his mental notebook to be shown to the class later. Which he probably did, knowing what the other is. Feliciano doesn't mind, he's quite alarmed to realise.

The more Feliciano talked, the more he notices that the man before him is quite the by-the-book kind of man. He finds it very charming, and he feels his cheeks grow hot, his lips pulling themselves into a grin.

When the police man has yet to reply, Feliciano finds it proper to add some more on the hows and whys.

"I own the Coliseum." He announces, rather than states. He feels a chuckle start to bubble from the back of his throat when he hears the other almost sputter in surprise, his legs taking a few step back from Feliciano as he gawks.

"You do?"

If his grin could get any wider, it did. "Of course."

"I did say I was important, didn't I?"

There's a resounding slap of skin on skin throughout the once-silent hallway. The people around were immediate to turn their heads towards the source of the sound: two men, one has his hand raised, palm poised into the position he used to slap the other with. His counterpart has his head turned, smart enough to keep his eyes closed and his mouth shut, letting the other to lead the conversation into whatever he wanted in a form of apology.

In an outsider's point of view, they would be wondering why would the victim apologize to their attacker.

In Feliciano's defense, the victim in question, this is Lovino. The older brother who knows a lot of things about their bad side of the business better than Feliciano ever could, and the irony isn't lost on the brothers.

"What the fuck was that?" Lovino hissed through his gritted teeth, his shoulders tense and his eyes blazing like liquid fire. None of those very obvious body language of Lovino's rage affected Feliciano's reasoning, much to Lovino's ever-growing temper, however, as Feliciano merely turns his head back towards his older brother again, his face calm, "An interrogation. I'm important to the case because I claimed to know the victims."

Lovino reacted as expected. He jumped, arms raised. Feliciano had predicted rather than saw what's going to come next and turned his head away and closed his eyes and mouth shut again as his brother approached him and started pounding at his chest and shoulders.

"Can you hear yourself, for fuck's sake? You claimed you know them, you literally didn't need to speak up, but no! You have to fucking go out there and declare to these," He points madly around them, his arms flailing, angrily looking for a solid target to land on and finding nothing but air. He opens and closes his mouth for a moment, breathing hard through his nose as he searches for a word that would be offending but not too much to get enough attention and fails, so he settles for a furious set of angry and disgusted facial expressions before moving forward with his lecture, "that." Another painful pound at Feliciano's chest. "You." Pound. "Are." Pound. "Fucking." Pound. "Important!" A punch aimed right at his face.

At this point, they have gathered enough attention that someone had foreseen what's going to happen at the end of Lovino's sentence and managed to pull them apart. Unfortunately, Lovino has a swift right hook and managed to land a blow right before they got pulled away and Feliciano's sorry enough that he didn't even bother jumping out of his brother's line of fire and accepted it all willingly. The force had him landing on his back and he finds himself blinking at the ceiling, wincing as the light hit him directly in the eyes, and again when he felt his nose start to bleed anew. At least this time, his brother doesn't have a reason to get angry about it again when he's the one who did it. Hopefully.

"Are you okay? Can you stand?" Someone says above him. It takes his eyes a while to focus but he managed to nod his head and mutter a "Yeah, thanks," before trying to stand on his own. Then a hand is offered that he graciously accepts before he gets pulled up. On his way up, his vision spins and he almost collapses again if it wasn't for the same person who caught him by the shoulders.

"Thanks," he nods at them. Then he looks around and is surprised to see his brother gone.

"Where's..."

"Some of the guys thought it was smart to take him out and help him get some air." They tell him. He turns his head to look at who this was and his eyes widen in recognition. It was the same cop he talked to back at his restaurant.

"Hey, it's you," He says, pointing at the man's uniform. He gets a nod. Then the cop's eyes narrow in concern, his head turning towards where his colleagues would have brought Feliciano's brother to.

"I don't suppose your brother liked you inside the interrogation room without him..."

Feliciano blinks and notices that the cop's gaze is now focused on him, or most likely, his bleeding nose. He flushes in embarrassment, tries to cover it with a laugh and a smile. "Oh, heh," He tries to look presentable again by rubbing some of the blood off with the sleeve of his shirt, inwardly tearing up at how much of a waste this is, ruining one of his best shirts forever, but if he didn't, who knows what the cop will think of him? He keeps his arm across his nose, also covering the area by his mouth in case he'd made it worse by spreading the blood everywhere and it wasn't like the bleeding has stopped yet anyway.

"That's just his way of saying he loves me and is afraid for what will happen to me because of what I did."

This made the cop's brows to furrow in confusion and doubt. "Doesn't look like it."

"Well, it is." Feliciano shrugs, fighting down the urge to frown and defend his brother's honour. Lovino is not an abusive brother. It just happens that sometimes emotions get the better of him. It runs in the family, really.

He pulls his arm away slightly and frowns at the severity of his bleeding, then frowns harder when blood started dripping to the floor. The bleeding has already reached his chin and is still continuing downwards. He's making a mess.

He's about to ask the cop if he can be allowed to go home now that he's said his part, only to have his sight of the floor to be blocked by a white handkerchief. He looks up to its source to see the cop with his arm outstretched. Feliciano felt his face flush red and he takes a step back.

"Oh, no, no, no," He starts, his free hand already trying to wave the offered hand away to no avail as the cop proceeds to counter his steps back with steps forward and a very insistent hand.

"Please," The cop insists with stretched-thin lips, shaking his head. For a second, Feliciano was at a loss, his leg doubtful if another step back would do the trick this time and his eyes looking everywhere, searching for a way out only to find none. His gaze flicks back to the cop and his outstretched hand.

"Well, um, if you insist," He says in the end, gingerly taking the white cloth from the other's hand and feels his own get drenched in sweat when he feels his fingers brush with the man's hand as he takes the handkerchief into his hands.

He looks away, feeling those cool blues too cold and steely as he presses the cloth into his nose and takes in the scent of flowers and hints of detergent. He felt his face grow warmer, and he sneaks a glance at the cop before him before laughing shyly as he tries to wipe the blood that got smeared all over his cheeks and chin with the man's handkerchief.

"I promise I'll wash this properly for you," He says for compensation.

There's a frown. "I don't mind."

Feliciano knows one mustn't look into things too much lest they break themselves or worse, but he did anyway and felt giddy inside. Luckily, he was quick to crush it all and squeeze everything inside a mental "burn later" box in the back of his head.

"You needn't bother yourself to give it back, really." The cop tells him, shaking his head and gesturing to the handkerchief.

Feliciano disagrees. "No, no, oh, this is too much already. Let me make up for all of this, we already bothered you guys enough." He gestures to the station and he's glad to note that the cop is not agreeing or disagreeing to that.

"So, uh," Feliciano restarts, fidgeting. He begins by trying to rub the cloth on the area right below his nose, still feeling the ghost of his warm blood dripping free. He's glad to note that the cop isn't looking at his bleeding nose, but right at his eyes. Under the cloth, Feliciano gives him a smile.

"How do I contact you after I get this clean and dry?"

"You're early."

Feliciano jumps when he hears his brother's voice right after he opened his door. The lights are off and if he didn't know better, he would've been terrified to know that he just heard his brother's toneless voice coming from the pitch-black void that is supposed to be his living room.

Fortunately for Feliciano, he does know better.

He finds himself blinking slowly, breathing out through his nose as he closes the door behind him and proceeds to find the light switch. He looks at the direction of his bedroom, where he knows Lovino is in, probably eating his chocolates again as he watches one of Feliciano's, as he liked to call it, "stupid gay Italian movies."

"Doesn't have much to do when The Coliseum is closed for investigation." He takes off his shoes in favour of his soft cotton slippers, unbuttoning the topmost part of his shirt as he makes his way to his room. What sight welcomes him isn't that much surprising, when you've been seeing it for the last few years or so.

"Come non detto? I thought you saw that already last week." Feliciano tips his head to the large screen stuck on his wall by the foot of his bed, the aforementioned film playing. Lovino doesn't spare him much of a glance at first, shoving a piece of chocolate into his mouth. He lets it stay in his mouth for a while, content to let his tongue run through its velvety texture and sucking when the layers started to unravel over his tongue. He licks at his fingers then taps at the empty space beside him, a silent invitation for Feliciano to lie on his stomach with his brother on the bed.

"His boyfriend's gayer than he is," He says once Feliciano is settled well beside him, eyes glued to the screen. Feliciano spares the screen another glance, his eyes almost wincing at how bright it is with his bedroom lights off and sees just in time how Mattia's father just called Edu a thief for seeing him wearing his son's obviously appeared offended and now Mattia's father is asking who Edu is. Feliciano doesn't need to watch any further what will happen next, as he owns the movie and remembers every vivid detail of every movie he owned after he had watched them just once.

Instead, he chooses to look at his brother. He still has his attention on the screen; a hand wrapped protectively around Feliciano's box of chocolate that he disappointedly notes is one of those expensive ones mixed with wine that was given to him by a close friend as a present last month for his successful new recipe.

"I'm sorry." Feliciano tells Lovino, eyeing his brother's profile sadly as he rests his head on his arms.

He knows that Lovino has heard him loud and clear when he sees how his brother's hand holding a piece of chocolate into his mouth pauses midway before continuing where it had left off like nothing had happened. He could have gotten Feliciano to believe that he never heard him, but the damage has already been done when Lovino makes the obvious mistake of chewing the chocolate right after he shoved it into his mouth, making a sticky mess of sweet on his teeth.

He takes his time chewing, then sucking his teeth until the sweet tang on his mouth is also gone before sucking at his fingers once again until they're clean. It took him a very long time.

Edu has already decided that there's no point in their relationship if Mattia isn't brave enough to introduce him to his family-To acknowledge him and Mattia's own sexuality.

"For what?" Lovino says, lowly. Too low for Feliciano to hear if he wasn't listening properly.

"For making my fratello worry."

Lovino grabs the remote, pausing the movie. He finally turns his attention on Feliciano, whole and true. "What makes you think I was worried?"

He raises a hand to card through Feliciano's hair that Feliciano is more than happy to lean into. "You came rushing as soon as you heard the cops got a hold of me." He chuckles softy, "you didn't even let Fernando finish."

"How's your face?"

"Fine. I'm hard-headed, aren't I?" He lied. Either way, it felt like Lovino knew already and didn't bother to call him on it as he continued speaking to him softly, his hands softer on him.

He shakes his head, "That's not what it meant, moron."

"Sorry."

"Three strikes and you're out."

Feliciano shakes his head, laughing softly. It didn't bother him that his brother doesn't find anything in this conversation funny, his voice just as toneless and his expression ever passive. Almost haunted.

"They wouldn't be able to trace anything back to me. It's going to be all Kirkland's." He tells his brother, trying to soothe the haunted look in his expression.

"When did you hear about that?"

"Just a while ago." He sighs, looking away with a sad frown. "He brought a kid along, and I swear," He looks back at his brother with an earnest expression, "I didn't know any of the boys had it in them-I don't even know why they would do it, we're friends with Kirkland."

"What did you expect when you gave them guns?"

Feliciano doesn't turn his head away this time but averts his gaze. He knows Lovino is right. "I wanted them to be able to protect themselves." He argues anyway.

Lovino's expression becomes chiding, his hand moving to pat his head once firmly. "Fratello, you have to put in it your little," He taps his fore and middle fingers at the side of Feliciano's head hard, making the younger brother wince but didn't pull away, "cotton-filled brain that your boys are just that. Boys."

He stares intently into his younger brother's eyes, big and trusting, "They're young and thinks their lives are too short so in the end, they follow the fates they carved for themselves. That stupidity killed them." Feliciano frowns at his brother's words and he looks down, studying his arms.

"Edgar, Justin, and Neil. You don't think...?" Lovino shakes his head at him, "This is Kirkland we're talking about." He appeared like he had already given up at the hope that three of Feliciano's boys could be alive. Feliciano would have been mad just to look at his brother's expression right now, but he knows that Lovino is right. This is Kirkland we're talking about, it isn't even words that were said for the sake of putting Feliciano down, but his brother stating a fact like how the sun is hot and the water is wet. Kirkland barely showed people mercy, no matter what their intentions are. Feliciano still finds himself praying for the people unfortunate enough to be involved and sometimes he cries when he hears about a new child Kirkland has fancied. Those poor children...

If Feliciano could, he would've objected to their family's alliance with the man, but with their current status and power, they need his help. They need his help very much.

So when Lovino said that there's no use hoping for the impossible, all Feliciano could do was turn his head left and right in denial, closing his eyes. A tear trickles down on the side of his cheeks and his brother wipes it away with the back of his hand.

"It's not fair, they're just kids." He sniffs, feeling his own voice break as he thinks about his boys-their hopes and dreams and their families.

"That's another thing you should remember," Lovino reminds him, pushing head close towards Feliciano's until their foreheads touch. Then Lovino pulls away only to slam his head against Feliciano's, making the younger wince once again. Inwardly, Feliciano wanted to tell his brother that this is why he's getting stupider by Lovino's standards. Despite that, he's still smart enough to be quiet.

Lovino shook his head. "The world isn't fair-It wasn't fair to us and I bet your God-" Feliciano's lips turn down at his brother's choice of words, "-that it wasn't fair even on Kirkland either. We just coped better than he did."

In that regard, Feliciano couldn't disagree.

He nods, his gaze fixed on his arms. Lovino doesn't look like he's concerned much about his brother's sudden silence and proceeds to tap Feliciano's cheek with his palm gently.

"Come on," He tips head towards the kitchen. "Let's put something on that bruise."

It makes Feliciano blink up at him, surprised. He presses a palm to where Lovino had previously tapped and winces when it hurts at the barest of touch. So that was why his brother had been gentle. He peers up back to his brother and sees him staring at him patiently, expecting something. Feliciano knows and understands what it is and so sighs quietly through his nose and nods along, already on his way to get up from the bed.

He hears Lovino mutter about movies he would never finish and Feliciano thinks it's appropriate to apologise for it, "Sorry," he tells him. The response he gets is a smack on his (not bruised) cheek and a "You're out."

Feliciano couldn't help himself but laugh.

In the end, Feliciano muses, nothing could really get past his brother.

E/N: *To those confused why Feliciano weeps whenever "kirkland fancies a new child" is because arthur is a pedophile is every sense of the word.

*Come non detto (tell no one) is a genuine italian gay film. Real nice and sweet. You can give it a watch too if you want.
*The Coliseum is a fake resto and I have a really bad memory, so I think I never mentioned in the other fic that this mafia au is set in new york? lol