It took him a bit to get to the door with his knees and hips aching the way they were, but Volker didn’t have to wait for too long. Earthenware cups, or at least one cup and a saucer, clinked against the table as he set it down, jimmying the door open a hair to peek out.

“Volker?” He was surprised, yes, and that showed in his voice, but something about the way his shoulders hung and the thinness of his lips told the old man to not ask questions. Rather, he swung the dense, thick door open, washing the young man in warmth. “...Get in, before you freeze.”

[HE DOESN’T TRUST YOU VOLKER]

[NOT AT ALL]

[SQUINTS]

[SQUINTS MORE IF YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY IDEA CEASE IT NOW OR HE WILL PUNCH YOUR JAW]

[Text]: It doesn’t make anything safer

@tangentially-displaced

[text: Volker] I didn’t want to know, thank you very much.

“I had been cleaning my house, trying to get some free space and I found this toy, with your initials craved on it.” He hands him this toy railway, that seemed to have been seen better days but was not damaged - or at least not to an external eye, he didn’t know if its engines were able to resist the time.

I remember seeing a boy way too similar to Ludwig - which couldn’t be possible because Ludwig was not a boy anymore.

...

I am sure the ceiling was just low.

[Gilbert frowned, still trying to get some of the mud out of the face of the boy. Honestly, where he had been? Rolling with the pigs? Diving into the a swamp? And that dirty was not getting off so easily.]

You will get the spoon anyway for the state of your clothes right now.

[Not the more soothing thing to say to a child, is it now?]

...

Tell you what. You tell me the truth, and I will call your house and ask for you to spend the night here so we can get everything cleaned and search for your shoe.

The lights came on, bathing the nondescript brick box he was in and the clear, plastic table in front of them in sharp, yellow light. Predictable as anything for an interrogation room, but it still made him squint and flinch back, his head throbbing at the sudden brightness of it. The vague shape of Volker’s oddly glittery body floated into view, bathed in that dense cone of light and illuminating the grease stains spattering his suit jacket. He wasn’t alone? Why would they be interrogated together? Why did he smell like hot wings?

...Well...hmm. This was an uncomfortably familiar situation that Vanya found himself in. His hands were still handcuffed behind his back, cuffed in turn to the metal-frame chair he was sitting in. His feet were linked together at the ankle, tied in turn to the chair’s support bar to keep him from hopping. Every fiber of his being ached, and the distinct acrid tang of copper still hung around his tongue. The only difference this time was he couldn’t hear the bids for first-crack at his face through the wall vents, and his accomplice at his side. It had to be for psychological purposes. They could do whatever they wanted to one, and fear would  make the other babble. The Italians used to do it. Why wouldn’t the Americans?

What was he doing here? Why was he here-

OH. RIGHT. Volker left him there to get tazed.