Where do these words come from?

0o0o0o

'It cannot be tracked?'

'The blame will fall solely to me,' Kiku assured. Emil's pale eyes shone in the semi-darkness. He looked too young to be working in this space of last breaths.

'Promise me.'

'I promise,' Kiku said instantly. Emil shook his head.

'Promise you'll...do something for Leon. For those after him.' He pressed the printed results into Kiku's hand, eyes desperate. 'Promise me, ambassador. With all your power and influence, with your words in the leader's ear. Promise me. For Leon.'

'I promise. For Leon,' Kiku echoed. Emil nodded, once, and let go of the papers. Kiku unrolled them, flattened the old folds. Precious, more precious than gold. These would save Yao.

The flash of a camera illuminated the bay for a second. He pressed numbers, fingers pausing over the last digit of Ivan's number. No. He erased it with shaking hands and pressed a new number, sending pictures, sending instructions. The message came back.

Kiku? What are you doing?

You must tell Yao.

He didn't wait for a response. He took one last look at the pictures of the results, shining dangerously on his device. There was no saving him now, he though with a twist of his lip. Condemnation. He'd take it.

He wrapped the heel of his hand in his silks and pressed down. The device cracked with a sound like bones.

0o0o0o

It was silent in the Middle fleet. Kiku did not stop to appreciate the soaring ceilings or the way his footsteps were swallowed up by the hallways in the darkness. His heart raced.

Yao was different, angrier, rasher, and the faint had increased this...difference. It was not natural.

He walked on quiet feet until he passed the dark border, and then proceeded towards the door he'd memorized. One knock, so quiet he almost thought he could not wake the person inside. He was readying for a second when the door swung silently open, and he gazed up into blue eyes.

'Ambassador Kiku. What may I do for you at this hour?' the man asked. Kiku bowed his head.

'I've come to compare medical results.'

'The medical bay is that way,' he said. Kiku shook his head.

'It is of a delicate matter.'

'Hmm.' The man's eyes glinted in the gloom. 'Come in, then.'

'Thank you, but it will be quick.' Kiku stood in the doorway and pulled out the papers on Yao's tests after his faint.

The Russian leader's eyes flashed, and he laughed, loud and louder. 'Clever.'

0o0o0o

'Be careful.'

The words hummed around him, and Yao swatted then away like flies. He was careful. He had always been careful. There was only so careful you could be when you led a fleet. This was the time for rash decisions to prove he-and his fleet!-were not weak.

Yao swept his papers into a pile. He had meetings he had missed, rescheduled. The new speech. And a private conference with the Russian leader. He scowled at it. It had been booked just yesterday, and experience said that was a bad sign. Nothing good came out of last-minute meetings.

Nothing good came from funerals planned in days. Nothing good came of the missive for the plaque on the wall to read barely sixteen years.

Yao released the papers and tried to smooth the creases. His head hurt. He'd have to pick something up for that. The teas weren't working. Nothing was working. His head throbbed, and the pained gasp he'd been holding back escaped as he collapsed onto his desk. Too much was happening and he couldn't even save who he loved.

May the stars come together for him.

0o0o0o

He dozed through the meetings, scribbling missives underneath the table. More funding for the cures that didn't work. More space for the people he couldn't cure. More people dying under his hand. More, more, more, and he was stretched to his limit. Kiku never showed up to the meetings nor called him, and Yao was too tired and too worried to wonder where he was.

How many ashes, he wondered, had they put into space?

The thought hurt too much to keep. He pushed it out of his mind.

'Nobleman Yao.'

'Ambassador Natalya,' he acknowledged, flipping over the page of his latest directive. Namely, not to give the Russian leader more control over the finances. Preoccupiedly, he remembered the message he'd seen Natalya write, and wondered laughably how to bring it up. Are you planning to kill me, Natalya? Have you already? The last thought scratched at him, but he ignored it.

'First, your device is ringing,' she said. Yao nodded, jotting down a final line in writing almost too messy to be legible, and picked up his device. Kiku's number.

'Hello, Kiku,' he said, turning back to the next pointless message about the lack of space for the new quarantine.

'Ciao! Are you Yao? Nobleman Yao. You need to act inconspicuous.'

Yao nearly dropped his device. This was not Kiku. He almost demanded to know who it was. He settled for, 'Are you sick? You sound different.'

The man laughed. 'Oh, I'm Feliciano. But that doesn't matter. Kiku has things to tell you.'

'Okay,' he said, completely baffled. Natalya watched silently.

'It's just that his device is kind of not working right now, and-' When he stopped, Yao caught a snatch of shouting from behind him, and his memory finally supplied where he'd heard Feliciano's voice before. Kiku's informant from the Axis.

'Yes?'

'You didn't faint from excitement,' Feliciano said quietly. Yao barely stopped himself from responding, humming noncommittally. Feliciano laughed half heartedly. 'You can't respond. You were drugged.'

Yao's pulse jumped.

'Sorry?' he said pleasantly, trying to keep himself together. His mind raced.

'I can't explain everything now. It is messing with your heart. Have you felt pains when your heart is going fast? Do you know when you were drugged? Because it's going to keep getting worse.'

Yao was floating, stunned and dizzy and stranded. His heart, his faint, how? When could he have been exposed? He rewound his life back through meetings and speeches, thinking of food, of drinks, of drinks-

And something hit him hard, with astonishment and fury and he gasped. Drinks, lace, impulse decisions and sharp pains. Kiku's voice, you've been stressed lately. His humming heart onstage, the dizziness before he fainted.

He looked up, and Natalya's unreadable, pale eyes gazed back at him.

Pawns, he repeated. We are all pawns.

'Yes,' he said, forcing his voice steady. Feliciano was silent for a long moment.

'You need to find out how to cure it,' he whispered shakily. 'Be careful, Nobleman Yao.'

He disconnected, and Yao lowered the device. His world listed sideways. Natalya gazed at him coolly.

'And second?' he asked.

'Your speech.'

Yao did not force the smile. It came and spread across his face, mad and terrified. The smile of a cornered animal.

'I hope I don't faint again,' he said.

Was it a spark in her emotionless eyes?

0o0o0o

Ivan found him in the hall seconds before he stepped out. A hand on his arm, pulling him in for a rough kiss. He smelled of sweat and flowers, always flowers. Yao groaned into it, gripped his flower-metal scarf.

'You ran here,' he said. Ivan gazed down at him. His eyes were seas, warring, stormy, and he held Yao at arms length before crushing their mouths together once again.

'Do you know how much voice you hold over these people?' he whispered, soft and light and childish, breath hot on his neck. His hands were everywhere. 'Your word is salvation or damnation, and you are too reckless of a judge.'

'What are you saying, Ivan?' Yao asked. His eyes were blue, violet, blue, stabbing and taking and stripping Yao away until only his soul remained. The blue of his eyes was endless sky Yao had never seen. God, Earth was a lifetime ago, and he ached for it just as much.

'Be careful,' Ivan said.

He stumbled away when Ivan ran, skin still tingling where warm hands had brushed over it.

0o0o0o

Their cheering was quieter. That was the first thing Yao thought. They watched him, but he saw no smiles, no light. They were scared, and he was the only one who could make them less so.

Ivan was a natural leader, attuned to every ebb and flow of the people he could have commanded if not for the metal in his chest. Yao felt like laughing. Once, a lifetime ago, they had been suspicious of each other. Once, he thought wants of fleets and leaders were set in stone. Once, he had wanted Earth. Once, Ivan had been interested in him.

He'd given up, and Ivan had stayed.

'A few days ago, I was announcing our plans for our alliance with the Russian fleet,' he recited. The words had been drilled into his brain with all the hours he hadn't slept. 'As I was outlining our plans for combating the coughing virus, I collapsed.'

A murmur from the crowd. He felt alone up on the stage, under the bright lights. Before, it was like he was one with his people.

'Please do not worry. This was not a serious trouble. I am not sick.'

A ripple, the words were hidden in an elbow or behind hair, but Yao heard each of them as clearly as if they were being said to him. Coughing virus, coughing virus.

Yao felt the smile, the cornered-animal smile, try to curl onto his face. He did not allow it. The thought that had brought it remained. He could tell them. He could tell them he was drugged and dying and that his heart was in danger. He could, and yet Ivan's words echoed. He could stir them to battle. He could. He could.

He would not.

'The energy of the event and the excitement overcame me. I, Nobleman Yao Wang, apologize to you.' Yao bowed his head. The crowd was silent. His ears rang, and he barely noticed as he was ushered off the stage. He collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. Kiku was nowhere to be seen.

0o0o0o

Yao could barely drag himself to meet with the Russian leader. The thought of the man barely stirred him. He was just tired, exhausted from worry and failure. There was too much.

But he was there, slumped in an armchair, waiting. The Russian leader poured drinks. He took the glass and swirled the red liquid, staring into it, wondering, and nearly drank it all at once.

'Are you well?' the man asked. Yao nodded and managed to stop swirling the glass.

'I was just overly excited. Thank you.'

If it was him that slipped the drugs into the wine, his eyes were as poised and emotionless as before.

'Forgive me, but you do not seem quite as in health as before.' The man leaned forward. 'You look sleepless, and pale. Is there any way I could help you?'

Yao bit back a remark about his drugged body and shook his head. 'I am fine.' The leader nodded, but a smile spread across his face.

'I insist. I can send people to alleviate the workload until you are well.'

Yao met his eyes. The only thing he noticed was how blue they were. How unlike Ivan's they were. He forced himself to nod again, loathing how easily he gave in, and raised the glass to his closed lips.

The leader shifted in his seat, the motion practiced and smooth. Court-mandated.

'You said…' He paused perfectly, just long enough that Yao nodded. 'You said you were not sick.'

'I am not,' Yao confirmed. His stomach sank, caved in in itself, making him nauseous.

'You could have been.' The man's eyes were sharp. Yao breathed in slowly. The seconds stretched. They both knew what was coming, who would agree and who would walk away victorious.

The paper scraped across the table, a rustle that sent jolts of acid through Yao's insides. He didn't have to look at it to confirm it was the quarantine bill.

'For the people.' He sounded sincere. Yao met his eyes and saw no malice, nothing hidden. He didn't know what to think. The scrawl of his hand across the dotted line twisted everything up inside of him.

He took the glass and drained it.

0o0o0o

Do I want to find out, or do I like not knowing better?

:: A time so familiar you've mapped your emotions when the clock ticks to those numbers