The room was almost completely empty, three chairs total and a table in which he was leaning on in boredom. He could tell that he was being watched, it was hard to ignore the 'mirror'. He wondered how many people there were watching him, but he'd like to think that it wasn't too many. This wasn't supposed to be an interrogation, but it certainly felt like one just by the atmosphere. There were a lot of thoughts that kept coming to mind when he looked around that was making him more and more uncomfortable with each tick of the clock on the wall. He wondered how his brother would do under such unstimulating conditions since his mind seemed to wander when he began to get bored. At least outside these walls, he was sitting around with over-stimulation with all the phones going off, typings going on, and speaking that only served to make the environment even more irritating. He was probably having a field day out there. Even with the boring conditions, Lovino much preferred here to out there.

He sat up when the door opened abruptly. Antonio was the only one who appeared. At least he was a familiar face.

"Hey." Lovino fiddled with his hands. Seeing the tape recorder in Antonio's left hand and a file in the right.

"Hey," Antonio responded back with a smile. "Sorry to keep you in here, it gets pretty tense in a white room."

"More like grey, it's depressing," He looked to the side, where the mirror was. "Is somebody behind there."

"Just Gilbert, it's a rule we have to follow. If I could have it my way we'd be alone but you know, safety first."

"It's fine. At least I can't see him." Lovino convinced himself. Antonio could very well be lying, there could be a dozen other people behind the glass, but he had to trust the process. Feliciano's words had forced him to think of himself.

"Sorry I couldn't bring you cashews," He joked. "I can see you're a little nervous." Sitting down, he placed the file on the table.

"I doubt cashews would help. I'd rather not be here in the first place." Lovino said bitterly.

"Look on the bright side," He began setting up the recorder. "Most people in your position come here in handcuffs."

"If that's the bright side then this place really is a shithole," Lovino folded his arms, shaking his head. "I won't get in any trouble for what I say here, right?" Antonio shook his head.

"Complete immunity, that is, unless you did something really bad. Like murder or rape." His eyebrows raised as if Lovino would ever say he did any of that right now. Just who did he think he was? A depraved maniac? At most, he was a terrible person but not that terrible.

"God no," Lovino assured. "You already know the extent of it, just wanted to be sure."

"There's no need to be nervous here, you're the victim in this case. Whatever you say isn't going to hurt you, it'll help you," Antonio frowned. "I'll try to take more care in making you comfortable, this is why we usually prefer to do these kinds of statements in your own space."

"Yeah, sure." He said skeptically. Antonio pulled out some papers from the file, Lovino could tell they were about to start so he folded his arms to try and find some comfort in himself. He hated family videos for this exact reason, people hearing the sound of his voice in a recording just sounded wrong to him. Nothing like how he thought he sounded. But such an oddly specific insecurity was no reason for him to be uncomfortable with being recorded, why the hell did he care what these people thought about his voice? Maybe more than he cared to admit.

"I'm going to start the recording, are you okay with that?"

"Go ahead." He heard a click as Antonio leaned over to press the button.

"State your name and the date, please for the record."

"Feliciano Vargas, third- No, wait. Fourth?" Feliciano looked around, trying to find a calendar or something that could help him out. "What's the date?" He whispered to Gilbert like a kid in maths class asking for the answers.

"It's the second."

"Feliciano Vargas, January second, nineteen-eighty-five." He said confidently.

"Six." Gilbert whispered the correction, so it didn't pick up on the recording.

"Nineteen-eighty-six, I mean. Sorry. New years always gets me confused," Feliciano said with a sheepish smile. "Do I have to redo it?"

"No, I think we've got it, pretty normal for people to forget the date, busy lives, and all that," Gilbert smiled. "I'd just like to ask you a few easy questions to get an idea of your relationship with your brother, what you've been doing, all the good stuff. Just give me some idea of what you two are like, you close?" Feliciano nodded enthusiastically. "I need verbal answers."

"Oh, right, uh, yes! We're close, I think," He rambled. "I like to think we're close. Sometimes we've been through rough patches, but we always get through it, he's living with my roommate and me while he heals."

"You work?" Feliciano nodded again. "Verbal please." Gilbert reminded him. It was like training a dog almost, not too dissimilar to how he was with his dog at least with the constant reminders. He didn't mind, he was likable enough just a little ditzy.

"Yep, I work. It's just in an art supply store because the owner liked that I knew about all that stuff. Oh, and sometimes I do some freelancing but that's not one of those 'real jobs', that's what my brother says anyway." Gilbert found that there was probably a more concise way to say all that than in virtually one mouthful. Talkative wasn't too bad for this job, talkative people didn't hold back as much information. But he found that usually led to more useless information that anything that he'd have to weed through later.

"You mentioned rough patches, what were those like and when?"

"Uh, I'm not sure I know what you're looking for, can you be more specific? Sometimes I argue with him about little things, but the big things are usually worse." Gilbert shrugged.

"Why don't we start by telling me about the big things." He leaned back, fully expecting more useless information before it got to anything important. But, at the very least, it could get Feliciano to thinking.

"Well, our grandpa died two years ago. Lovino didn't take it well, they were close."

"Were you not close to your grandfather?" Feliciano shook his head.

"No, it wasn't like that, it's just that Lovino was closer. Just before he passed, he gave him his cross but that went missing when Lovino was attacked, I can tell he's been sad about that. He still thinks about him and if you mention him, he needs some time to be alone after. I'm just happy grandpa wasn't in any pain, you know?"

"And you had some conflict over that?"

"It was mostly residuals, you know. From other things." Gilbert decided to pivot.

"Other things like Sadik Adnan?" Feliciano's lips became taut, his face deadly serious.

"Yes." He answered simply. His jaw clenched for a second.

"I take it you don't like him too much." Feliciano shook his head. "Verba-"

"No, I don't. He hurt my brother."

"How did he hurt him?" Feliciano furrowed his brows, thinking about it. He seemed to be irritated over the memory of it.

"Before Lovino lived with him, he had some problems with his temper and maybe he shoplifted and pickpocketed a couple of times when we were younger, but he was never a serious criminal," Gilbert's eyebrows raised at how easy Feliciano was to give away all of that. Even Lovino hadn't told them about all the other petty crimes he'd been involved in. "After he lived with him, he was ruining his life. I told him that he was going to end up, well, here one day. Probably suspected of something horrible but instead, he kept doing what he was doing with Sadik."

"What was that?"

"Drug dealing, he never did anything with the stuff as far as I know but sell it. That's still bad all the same. And then whenever Lovino's temper flared up he used to get into fights with Sadik except Lovino had trouble defending himself. They were both as bad as each other the difference was that Sadik was a lot stronger than him."

"There was an incident on the seventeenth of March wasn't there?" Feliciano nodded.

"I decided to take him out for our birthday but when I saw him…" Feliciano looked at the recorder. "Am I allowed to curse?"

"Go ahead."

"As soon as I saw Sadik I wanted to kill the son of a bitch," Feliciano said with a surprising amount of aggression. Although, Gilbert could understand that when it came to his brother, he would've said the same thing. "I just knew that he'd given him all those ugly marks, he knew Lovino would've gotten arrested if he'd gone to anybody – So I just did what he couldn't."

"So you'd say he does have a history with violence?"

"Yes, I think if he hadn't of moved out Sadik would've killed him."

"Were they ever in an intimate relationship?" Feliciano shrugged.

"I wouldn't know, it doesn't matter much to me anyway. Lovino says they were just 'business partners'," Feliciano said with air quotes. He rolled his eyes. "But I think he just says that so he can look better about not laying with a guy like Sadik – And he says I have low standards," Gilbert was surprised by his snappiness over the subject but maybe that was just because he'd already gotten riled up from the discussion around Sadik. "Your brother's cute, you know? And also not a criminal so I'd say I've done well for myself. I mean, not that you're bad it's just that Ludwig is so much more-" Before he could go into all the gritty details of the abundance of things Feliciano found so cute about his little brother he stopped him.

"Okay, maybe this has gone a little off track," Gilbert coughed. "We don't need to know so much about your connection to the witness." It was interesting, the obscurity of Sadik and Lovino's relationship.

"Oh, sorry. But it's true," Feliciano smiled with dreamy eyes. "Kind of a neat freak though, real stiff about that." He frowned, obviously a point of contention amongst them. But that wasn't Gilbert's business right now.

"Is there anybody that you know of that would've attacked Lovino on that night? Did he tell you anything, about meeting anybody, seeing someone?"

"I can't think of anyone but Sadik. Even then, I don't know. It's been three years since they've really seen each other, Lovino never talks about him anymore…" He could see the worry on his face. "Just Sadik, I could see him holding a grudge if he really wanted to. He's all I could think of that I know about."

"Thank you, that'll be all for now," Gilbert pressed the recorder to end the questions.

"Grazie. I hope I wasn't too bad." Feliciano smiled, although, Gilbert noticed how held back it was compared to before the interview.

"No, you did just fine. Exactly what you should've." Give or take, a bit of a rough start.

"Good… That's good, can I use the bathroom now?" He nodded, of course, there was never anything stopping him. They always allowed people to use to bathroom lest they have piss puddles from grown men on their floor.

When he was safe from the eyes of police officers, Feliciano checked each of the stalls to make sure he was alone. He'd been told that nobody appreciated a grown man's tears in public – That was advice his brother gave but they were true. Lovino didn't need to see him cry because he needed to feel stable after such uncertainty. His jaw tensed when he turned on the sink. All that deep-seated hatred had come to the surface again and he could only hope it didn't complicate the case.

In a display of his vivid memory of that day, he rubbed his knuckles remembering how much it hurt to punch a man in the face two times his size – It was so incredibly stupid but it felt good. He was already blaming himself for not being there to protect his brother from harm, with the nightmare he realized how hard it was going to be for them to go back to the way it used to be. Lovino had a hard life as is, Feliciano thinking he'd done something to help get him to a stable point in his life and now they had to start all over again. If this was Sadik, all those hard feelings were back.

He hadn't even given that man much thought since then but now he was hellbent on making sure someone like him didn't get away with this.

"Hey, asshat," Feliciano immediately began washing his face as originally intended. Trying to pretend he was just freshening up. "I want to go home." Lovino told him.

"Can you just-"

"Are you crying?" He asked with a distinct annoyance weaved in. Feliciano wiped his face, turning off the sink. An uncontrolled sniffle came from him.

"I guess I am."

"Why?"

"Just thinking." Lovino snickered.

"Thinking makes you cry? Is that why you're an idiot?" Feliciano unwillingly laughed; he couldn't seem to stop the few stray tears that had come out after as the emotions became confused.

"You always liked bullying me." He remarked, standing a little straighter as he tried to compose himself.

"It's my birthright," Lovino shrugged. "If you were born a couple of years before me then maybe I'd be the asshole crying in a police station bathroom," The thought made Feliciano shudder. He couldn't imagine the roles being reversed. "Just give me your keys and I'll drive." He couldn't complain, it probably wasn't safe to have him drive anyway. He reached into his pocket and threw him the keys before they lamely fell on the bathroom tile with an echoed crash. Lovino groaned, leaning over.

"Sorry." Feliciano muttered.

"You failed gym, don't even try." His brother sighed.

"But I was good at track." Feliciano reminded him. Even if it made his legs feel like jelly and he never did it long enough to gain any endurance he still got higher marks for it than anything else even if, yes, he did fail gym.

"The only reason you did that was because it doesn't take skill to run around in a circle," Lovino snickered before he swung the keychain around his finger. "You were good though; I'll give you that."

"Thanks, I guess," Feliciano smiled. "I think I'm ready to go home now, it's been rough on both of us." His brother nodded turning around expecting him to follow. He scrambled to try to catch up, going in an awkward jog to get to the door just as it was about to close on him. "Ow." He said weakly when the door hit his shoulder, but he could see his brother didn't slow down to check on him. A frown appeared on the corner of his lips as he managed to catch up.

"Hey, what's the rush?" He had to ask.

"I need my medication."

"But you already took it before we left, you can't take more than you need, or you'll become addicted!" Feliciano warned, his brother rolled his eyes.

"I was unaware you were the one with the ravine running up your body."

"That doesn't matter, you have to listen to the doctor. You sound so much like grandpa sometimes." Lovino avoided eye contact. He didn't like it when he said that – But it was true, they were more alike than he cared to admit.

"Whatever, that's my prerogative." Feliciano felt bad, he shouldn't have said that. But the reminder of grandpa did give him an idea that would definitely make up for everything.

"Can we stop off at the jewelers?" He asked when they pulled the front doors.

"What? Why?"

"It's a secret." Feliciano smiled.