Welcome, I think I take too much from things.

0o0o0o

'Sleep.'

The gentle command wound through his dreams. He dreamed of Kiku again, crowned leader again, before he drifted too far away to see the boy's tears. He did not feel angry or lost or hurt in those dreams, only calm. He floated away from Kiku and Leon and it all, far into space, and Ivan's hands pulled him just a bit closer and he insisted, 'Sleep.'

When he awoke, Ivan was holding him gently away from the sharper metal of his chest. Yao craned his neck and felt surprised that his blue eyes were wet.

'You're crying.'

'So are you,' he said softly. 'Did I make you cry?'

'No. No, I think I did.' Yao gently touched his neck. 'You didn't put your scarf back on.'

'I didn't need to.'

Yao had a blurry memory of Ivan cleaning him off with a soft cloth as he lay half-asleep before asking him if he should go.

'You said that you wanted me to stay the night.' Ivan looked almost hesitant. 'Did you really want me to?'

'Obviously, Ivan,' Yao said with a smile. 'It was the least I could do.'

'Normally, you'd have called me 'Braginsky' then,' Ivan noted, sounding happier than he had ever been. Yao didn't see what was so important that Ivan liked Yao calling him his first name.

'I won't call you 'Braginsky' again if you don't want,' Yao vowed, and Ivan smiled a real, joyful smile.

'Please.'

They could almost pretend there was no fleets to deal with as they sat curled in Yao's bed, trying to find Ivan's scarf and coat from where they'd been thrown. Yao gave up salvaging the crumpled shirt he'd thrown on yesterday that he was actually supposed to wear today and settled for a white one instead. Ivan adjusted the heavy folds, expression tender, before his eyes took a cast of melancholy.

'Ivan?'

'Спасибо, любовь моя.'

'What?' Yao frowned. 'Was that Russian?'

'Yes.' Ivan looked somewhat amused and sad. 'I said 'thank you',' he clarified with a small smile.

'You could have said it in English.'

Ivan seemed to find that funny, but his eyes were still sad until the point they stepped out the door.

0o0o0o

'You know, you should speak Russian more often. It sounds…' Yao waved. 'You speak it well.'

'I should.'

'It sounds nice when you speak it,' Yao rephrased. Ivan laughed.

'I am surprised you don't know much of it.'

'I don't think I've spent enough time around anyone from your fleet other than you to pick it up. And I never had time or-forgive me, reason to learn it before the alliance. And even as the pact was being forged, I was up to here in paperwork in my own languages. To try to learn yours would be...' Yao gestured exaggeratedly above his head and laughed, too, stretching his arms up to the ceiling. It felt good. 'Maybe I should. One day, when I am so old that I am blind and Kiku has to lead the fleet. You can tell me the words and I'll repeat them.'

'That would be nice,' Ivan said.

They were in front of the conference room now, and yet Yao didn't want to go in. After neither of them moved to open the door, Ivan held out his arms and Yao pressed gratefully against him.

'You said that I could save you 'tomorrow',' Ivan reminded him. His voice was serious. Yao sighed deeply against his chest, listening to the familiar whir of his machinery.

'I think we'll need all the saving we can get.'

'May the stars come together for you, then.' Yao looked up, surprised. Ivan kissed his head and he let go, then reached for the door handle.

The room fell deathly silent as soon as they came in. Yao tried to look for an ally in the stony crowd, and his eyes landed on Kiku, who was the only one looking down. The scrape of a chair shattered the silence as Natalya pushed herself to her feet.

'Braginsky.'

Yao could hear his machinery speed up at that. 'Hello, sister.'

'I'm surprised you are here. I thought you had received the order we sent to your rooms-' Was it just Yao's imagination that she emphasized the words? '-that you are no longer Nobleman Yao Wang's ambassador.'

Yao's heart stopped and restarted and stopped again, trying to make sense out of her words. They didn't make much sense.

'Sorry?' Ivan was smiling, but his breathing was stuttering.

'I delivered the warrant myself. Where were you last night, Braginsky?' When he did not answer, she proceeded carelessly. 'You have been replaced as Yao Wang's ambassador due to several accounts of sharing private information as well as acting unprofessionally outside of the work environment. You will not be allowed near him again.' She looked straight at Yao, and the words from the letter, replaced replaced replaced, beat senselessly through his head. 'We must protect the leader, after all.'

Someone guided him to his seat. The guards surrounded Ivan, quietly telling him that he was not allowed to be in such high-state matters if he wasn't Yao's ambassador, and Yao's sight of him was almost cut off. Right before he was ushered out, they locked eyes. And then he was gone.

'We apologize for the interruption, Nobleman Yao,' Natalya said. 'If we could resume our meeting…?' Yao nodded and slumped in his chair, shocked into obedience. Ivan's disappearance left the space to his left cold. To his right, there was Kiku, who wanted the best for him, who tried his best for him, who was his ally if not friend. He tried to look at the young man out of the corner of his eye.

'Kiku.'

The black-haired man jumped slightly. 'We cannot talk,' he whispered back. Yao chewed his lip, thinking, and tapped out a series of long and short clicks on the leg of his chair. Kiku frowned at first, but then his eyes lit up. Yao almost chuckled.

'You remember.'

'Of course,' Kiku said, trying to hide his smile. Yao finished tapping I-N-F-O T-O S-A-Y, and after barely a pause, Kiku answered L-E-O-N.

Yao glanced at him, and Kiku furrowed his brow.

S-I-C-K B-A-Y

Yao nodded, Kiku offered him one last smile, and they returned their attention to the meeting just as Natalya looked over.

'Of course, there remains the problem of Nobleman Yao's new ambassador.' She looked at him coldly, and Yao recalled her words. The fact that she had no real malice against either of them did not soothe the wounds. It was just the game of the fleets.

'I do not know if Nobleman Yao needs an ambassador,' Kiku volunteered. 'Do you?'

'It is protocol, Honda.' She fixed her gaze on Yao, and he stared steadily back. Rationally, he knew Natalya was not the one who had really sent Ivan away, but rage boiled in his stomach regardless.

'Who is my ambassador?' he forced out.

'I will be.'

The lingering traces of warmth-from Kiku or from Ivan-disappeared. Yao felt cold again. Natalya nodded patronizingly slowly, and Yao made his frozen mouth agree.

0o0o0o

As true to his word as always, Kiku was waiting outside the sick bay. Yao smiled wearily at him as he drew closer, and Kiku bowed slightly in response.

'You still remember my lessons about the Earth Morse code,' Yao said. 'I didn't think you would.'

'I don't practice it frequently, but I remember enough,' Kiku said. He looked back inside the window of the medical bay, seemingly steeling himself, and when he looked back to Yao, his eyes were determined. 'If we could save Leon, would you agree?'

'Of course!' Yao gasped, tears springing to his eyes. 'How?'

Kiku grimaced. 'Ivan and I had a deal. A plan, more so, to manufacture another of his machines and repeat the procedure on Leon.'

Yao tried to absorb the information.

'You'd rip him apart?'

'It's the only way,' Kiku said.

'It's an experimental procedure, Ivan said so himself, he said it could kill him, he said-'

'I know,' Kiku said loudly, face flushed. 'Did you think we had another way to save him? Did you think we'd finally defeated the coughing virus?'

'I...I hoped.' Yao shook his head, more tears welling in his eyes. 'I have to hope.'

'You have always, always hoped too much,' Kiku said tiredly. He was young, Yao thought, but not that young. Maybe even surpassing him in aging of the mind. He would make such a good fleet leader, Yao thought with a hint of nostalgia laced with pain. If or when he made it there.

'Did you ask Leon?' Yao deflected. Kiku nodded.

'Yes. He said...he didn't know. He wanted to be saved, but not like that.'

'It takes something from you,' Yao agreed. Inside the window, Leon was still and silent, hooked up to machines that were driving him along his last few hours.

'Last chance, Yao,' Kiku said desperately. 'Should we save him?' Yao looked into his eyes and felt the weight of this decision-which seemed so much heavier than anything else-and shouldered it gratefully.

'Contact Ivan. Start the procedure.' He paused, and Kiku's eyes lit. 'Save him, Kiku.'

0o0o0o

When his device beeped, for a single absurd second Ivan expected Yao's voice on the other end of the line. It was Kiku.

'Mr. Braginsky, please bring in the machinery.' Ivan sat up straighter.

'Of course. I will be at the sick bay in fifteen minutes.' He ended the call and immediately contacted Toris. 'The machinery, please. At my rooms in ten minutes.' Toris was silent, and Ivan felt a flicker of fear. 'It is done?'

'It is done.' He sounded defeated. 'Eduard programmed this one as well, but Raivis refuses to do the procedure.'

'That is not true,' Ivan said softly. 'He would do it if I asked. But no matter. There are better surgeons. My rooms, Toris, in ten minutes. Do not be late. I have a life to save.'

'Who?' he asked suddenly. Ivan, about to end the call, decided to humour him and lifted the device back to his mouth.

'A young boy's.'

Then he hung up, swept the papers demanding his attendance at his leader's offices aside with a strange sense of satisfaction, and wrapped his scarf around his neck.

0o0o0o

Kiku stood silently, the slight furrow between his eyes the only indication of his worry. Yao paced. He couldn't stay still, imagining all the ways the procedure could go wrong, or even worse, the ways it could go right. The way he could hug and praise and talk to Leon again, soon, just as soon as the machinery was involved.

It was during this pacing that he turned around into a chest covered in soft fabric and a sunflower-scented scarf.

'Ivan!'

'Yao,' he said tenderly. In his hands, there was a briefcase. He carried it as gently as if it was more than gold-which it was. Yao drank in the sight of him, a thousand things to say aching on his tongue, but he swallowed all of them. Now was not the time. Ivan finally looked back to Kiku and wordlessly handed him the briefcase before producing two air masks from his pocket. Kiku accepted one, Yao hesitated to take the other.

'Don't you need it?'

'Not technically,' Ivan said. Yao strapped on the mask and followed Kiku into the room.

'Where are your best surgeons?' Ivan asked one of the doctors. She instantly rushed to go find them, and by the time she came back, Yao was nearly sick with anticipation. He was going to save Leon. They were going to save Leon.

When he did see Leon, he felt like he was going to be sick. Leon was pale and emaciated, and his eyes rolled underneath the eyelids. He looked so different. Emil sat by his bedside, looking almost the carbon copy of the brunette's symptoms. When Yao and the others came in, he barely glanced up.

'Are you here to save him?' he asked dully. 'Don't you think you're a bit late?'

'If he's breathing, he's saveable,' Yao insisted furtively. Emil just shook his head with a little laugh and let them come closer. The surgeons examined both him and the machinery, one's face turning white when he saw it.

'You mean to rip him apart.'

'Yes,' Yao whispered, hating the feel of the words. 'Can you? Will you?'

'Yes,' one of them said. 'Of course, he might…'

'Die. I know, I know. Just-just save him,' Yao begged. The surgeons seemed to hold a conversation with each other in the span of a millisecond, and they both backed away.

'Say goodbye now,' the younger one directed, sounding broken and small. 'Just in case, okay?'

Ivan bowed his head. Kiku whispered a quick prayer, eyes haunted. Yao stepped up and felt all the pain of the last few days crash in on him in a pitiful, tiny sob as he pressed a kiss to Leon's forehead.

'You're going to survive,' he said, repeated it until he could almost believe it. He would not say goodbye. There was no need for goodbye if he would wake up.

The surgeons began to work.

0o0o0o

I am strangely in love with the ideas of rising and falling.

:: Sitting awake, propped against something as you think with wide eyes