Yekaterina was proceeded by a few brave members of Yao's family. The twins, Hyung-Soo and Yong-Soo, trailed behind, having witnessed Ivan's strength once before. They understood Ivan's rage all too well; Yong and Hyung would have jumped in to assault the backstabber themselves if Yao hadn't taught them restraint so well.

But Ivan, in all of his lonely years, had never been taught such things. He only realised afterward, as he did now, that what he had done was wrong. His vision began blurring at the edges, drawing him away from the world around him. Vaguely conscious of his actions, Ivan stuffed the pipe he'd been clutching into his pocket. What pipe? What Kiku?

"Ah, sister… when did you arrive?"

"Dawn." She outstretched her arms tentatively, offering an embrace to perhaps quell the dizzying flutters of Ivan's heart.

Ivan slunk forward into his sister's open arms. Yao's family stared, unsettled at the sudden shift in Ivan's mood, but they understood.

-segue-

Yao picked fervently at the IV needle under his skin. A massive bruise had developed in the crook of his arm, but something within him went mad and wouldn't let him stop. At first, just nudging the point of the needle around was enough to itch the crawling, writhing presence in his arm, but soon he had begun writhing himself, clenching his fists and drawing his body into a shuddering ball.

He knew not why his body had be so uncooperative; his mind worked just fine, pondering what he would say to Kiku when they had both collected themselves. He'd have to address the family, too… They hadn't seen much of Kiku in the past century, but Yao could tell that some of them thought Kiku's only fault was being too harsh in his righteous retribution. When Kiku fled for his own country, he left a frayed piece in the family Yao had woven together over the course of millennia. The immortal fabric of family, Yao's pride and joy, fell to pieces soon after.

Kiku hadn't intended to hurt the family with his leave; he had to attend to his nation in light of the actions of the encroaching west in China. He would still come spend the Lunar New Year with his family every few years, but the spaces between visits grew until eventually Kiku's place at the table was filled by one of Yao's cats or some mortal friend they'd made. The family carried on without Kiku, huddled together in Yao's home and ignoring the world as Yao had taught them to do in troubling times. Soon, though, attendance at the New Year's dinner became sparse. One by one, they realised that they could no longer be so blind to the world. They had duties to their struggling countries.

So strand by strand, the family unraveled. It was the nature of the world that such things could not last. Perhaps Yao needed a reminder of this, as his last falling out was with dear Romulus, before he had ever dreamt of a family.

Crash. The grating, splintering feel of wood being struck shot up through Yao's spine. He dug his fingernails into the flesh where his IV needle should have been and clenched each muscle in his body until the sensation passed. When it did, Yao let himself go. In his quiet frenzy he'd managed to dig the needle out from his body.

As soon as he lifted his head to check what happened, he was caught by Natalya's cryptic stare. It reminded him of Kiku. Instead of asking how long she'd hovered there, Yao reached up to push her away.

Natalya caught his wrist firmly. This was not the time for whatever trip down memory lane Yao had scheduled in his muddled mind "My brother is beating up yours."

"Oh." Yao shoved whatever misgivings he had for Kiku aside and sat up. "Where?" He demanded despite an overwhelming urge to keel over.

"In the attic." Impatient now, she let go of Yao's arm. "Just… help me stop him." Before Yao finished bracing himself to stand, she had left and left the door open too.

Kiku barreled into Yao just as he'd finally hobbled to the door. Yao fell back onto his tailbone. Hard.

Reeling from the blow and everything else, Yao crumpled to his side and stayed there silently. It was a habit he'd picked up in 'the facility', suffering silence, but he was also too winded to make a sound.

"Oh…" Heartbeat thudding against his temples, Kiku half knelt, half crumpled next to his elder brother. He couldn't turn back, but he wasn't ready to face Yao. Not yet. Not yet…

"I'm so sorry.." Kiku squeaked, then fumbled to- pick up Yao? Lay him on his back? Hold his hand? Oh, his head might explode from his pounding pulse..

Everything was black though Yao was sure he'd opened his eyes. Just as well, there was no mistaking Kiku's voice. He reached out for Kiku with the arm he had dug a needle out of moments before but forgotten about.

Kiku gasped. Egads, the wound was nasty. "Sorry!" He exclaimed though he knew that there was no way his arrival could rip a hole from Yao's arm. "I'll- Where does he keep the bandages?"

It took a moment for Yao to remember who 'he' was. "Under the bed, but I think I can heal up this one just fine."

"No you can't, the records show that this kind of thing takes at least two days and can get infected."

"The records?"

"Uh." The records were the transcripts from unit 731 where Yao had been kept for 'experimentation'.

"What?" By this point, Yao had recovered some bit of his vision. He met Kiku's eye and saw the same Kiku he'd known before the war, but with a face frozen in panic and bordering on tears. "Ah… It's okay, it's okay… It's fine… I won't be mad…". He patted his little brother's cheek with the hand from his good arm, propping himself up with the other so as to bring it out of sight. "I won't…" It took a while, but the subject of Kiku's discomposure dawned upon Yao. He felt something cold course throughout him as the realisation hit him, then shook the feeling. "It was for science… shh…"

Kiku felt the same cold surge as Yao, knowing that he too was thinking of the facility. That was when tears overwhelmed him. He looped both arms around Yao's waist and sobbed, forehead buried in Yaos chest, breath ugly and mucous dripping from the tip of his nose. Yao wept too, but his tears came in silence. He wrapped both arms around Kiku though one had an open wound and held on for dear life.