TO THE RUINS

Backs of fingers brushed his forehead so gently, he thought he'd dreamt it up. Rattling metal and turning wheels kidnapped him from his quiet slumber, slowly bringing his consciousness back to life. 

The fingers vanished as soon as he flinched awake, and Matt forgot about them easily enough. 

"... Hey, Princess."

That sounded like Cifer. He was calling him princess again. What a dick. 

"Matt."

Huh. Sounded pissed. Matt's hand lifted into the air and his fingers curled in. Save for his middle finger—Matt could finally flip Cifer the bird.

His hand got smacked away. "Fuck. You good?"

He nodded as he tried to turn over in his sleep and wave the other alpha off. Offensively, a warm hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him back into place. Matt grunted when an unfamiliar ache pumped through him with every beat of his heart. Dark eyes cracked open to find wherever Cifer was so he could glare a hole through his skull.

"Fuckin' talk to me!"

Was that—had Cifer's voice trembled and nearly cracked? Matt abandoned his idea of glaring a hole through the blond and grit his teeth instead. Slowly, the alpha pushed himself up and off the shitty bed that was practically a luxury experience compared to the bed he'd been sleeping on. 

Sitting up properly, he had to duck out from under it to keep his head from hitting the bunk bed above him. "... Shut up, Cifer." 

Following a flurry of blinks, he caught sight of Cifer melting against the wall of the train they were riding. The big bastard was sitting on the floor—propped back against the wall with the window—in a way that made it so he could easily see Mattias where he lay. 

Cifer's fingers carded through his blond hair, but they held a shake to them. "We're never doing that again. Orders, my ass. They can go fuck themselves."

Mattias' brain thought that was just so utterly Cifer Calaway that he couldn't help the drunken laughter. 

"Sounds correct." Matt's eyes crinkled from the lopsided grin on his face. "What are we not doing again?"

"Going in the elevator. While you're still awake."

"Oh."

Ugh, he was loopy. It took several seconds for those words to stew inside his head, "wait, why were we in an elevator?"

Cifer's expression turned complicated as he lifted a knee and draped one of his arms over it. It was then Matt realized Cifer wasn't wearing a shirt. Or shoes. Just… pants? Oh, nugget. The sight of the other man's pale, muscled upper body made him turn his head away. 

"Because we were underground, dipshit."

"But the windows on the ceiling. They were only on the second floor, and that elevator went on forever—"

"Fake windows. Built that way so you can keep track of time down there," Cifer's fingers fiddled with themselves before a glint of life appeared in his eyes, "wait, you remember the trip?"

"A little. What happened? What was all—" the dark-haired alpha waved his hand in a broad gesture, "that?"

"... No idea. "

"Come again?"

"Stop asking questions you don't want the answers to, Matty. You're so fucking annoying."

"Wouldn't have to be annoying if you weren't such a bitch."

Cifer moved faster than Matt could blink. A pillow got snatched up and collided with his face so harshly it knocked the wind out of him. Sputtering through a bout of immature laughter, innocent delight bloomed inside his core. In that tiny slice of space, Matt was a teenager again, and Cifer was the lead alpha of their army unit that he'd just intentuonally got a rise out of for the fun of it.

But the bubble burst milliseconds after its creation.

"... Awake?" a man said from outside the door. It slid open seconds later, and Lev's pale, clean-shaven, pudgy face brought Matt back down to reality. 

Their eyes met and whatever mirth Matt held on his features vanished into the aether. 

"Good?" Lev asked. 

"Yeah. Good," Cifer didn't bother standing up. He just tossed the pillow back where he found it and stayed where he was. 

"I'd hate for it to be otherwise."

"How long was I out?"

Cifer rested his head against the vibrating wall of the train and Matt couldn't imagine that it was remotely comfortable. "Five hours. We're almost at the ruins." 

"... Of Nizhny Novgorod, right?"

"Yes," Lev wandered into the room and a guard shut the sliding door behind him, "we're just passing through."

Cifer's gorgeous baby-blues landed on Lev as his fingers continued their idle fiddling. "We're good on supplies, then?" 

"Yes. And no. We have to buy another key."

"What happened to our old one?"

"It's back at the palace."

Mattias balked.

"There's a palace?"

"Shut up, Matt."

Cifer started the awkward task of standing himself up whilst being a gargantuan man crammed into a tiny space. "Fine. Get us another key. If something happens between the ruins and Izhevsk, and we don't have a key, we're fucked."

"We'll make a brief stop in the Cradle, then."

The more these two men spoke, the more Mattias realized he really was back in a foreign country. He wasn't sure what the fuck the Cradle was, but he didn't like the sound of it. 

"I thought Nizhny Novgorod was levelled at the end of the war? Isn't it completely abandoned?" he asked. 

Lev snorted. "Ha, of people? Yes. Of villains? No."

Matt's jaw stuck out at the edges. "How many villains we talkin', here?"

"All of them," said Cifer. 

Matt's hand damn near rubbed his own face raw. "You can't be fucking serious?"

Lev shook his head. "Do you not have underground networks and large-scale villain organizations in America?" 

"We do."

"And?"

Matt's face screwed up tightly. "And, what?"

"Where do they live?"

"Fuck if I know. I'm not a supe, let alone a hero signed with an agency."

"Ah. To be young and stupid again."

Mattias' hand lifted to flip Lev off, but Cifer saved him from his own audacity by blocking it off with his hulking body. 

"So, what? Forty minutes until we arrive?"

"Yes. Give or take, minus the snow."

"Already?" Matt's head poked past Cifer's hip, but as he went to move, something distracted him entirely. "... Isn't it early for snow?"

"Winters have grown harsher since the war. Too much debris in the atmosphere above Russia."

"Yeah. Makes sense." Absently, Matt's hand reached out to brush his fingertips against Cifer's heated skin. 

The blond stiffened and reached out to grip the bunk bed above where Matt had been sleeping for support. He didn't catch the dirty, terrifying look Cifer sent his way, either. 

"... Get our men ready to go down to the Cradle. And for fuck's sake, find Matt something to hide his face."

"Tsk. Why? Only a handful of us remember what he looked like as a boy, let alone a man. It's why they struggled so hard to find him."

Matt's fingers traced tight ridges he'd never seen before; they slipped tenderly along Cifer's lower back, near his left hip. Not even the sound of metal cracking from somewhere above his head tore his attention away from what he was looking at. 

Cifer sounded just as tight as his muscles were flexed. "The King is in town."

"Disgusting. Fine. I'll do it. The American Pig fits his abominable tastes to the letter."

"Hm?" 

He really wasn't paying any attention. The backs of his digits felt where deep ridges met clean, unmarred skin, and the smaller alpha marvelled at how soft Cifer's back is in comparison. 

An imperfection. Matt had never seen one before. It was captivating. 

Something metal broke completely above him, and finally, after being entranced for far too long, he instinctively shot his eyes up to make sure the roof wasn't caving in. Another learned reflex from the war. 

"Get out, Lev."

He forgot how to breathe. It was that voice again. That deep, rumbling, inhuman snarl from the depths of Cifer's throat. Locked in place with his hair standing on end, his hormonal instincts tightened his shoulders automatically. Matt rolled them back and raised his chin; he'd experienced Cifer's alpha voice a few times now, so he thought he could handle it. 

He thought wrong. Lev instantly backed up, hastily tugging the door open before sliding it back shut behind him. The second that half-rate alpha left, Cifer whipped his body around and all hell broke loose. 

The blond bent down at what looked like an uncomfortable angle before he squeezed onto Matt's tiny fucking night train bed with him. 

Alarm and bewilderment painted themselves on his face as limbs tangled and wrestled with one another for the millionth time. This always happened, ever since they were young—Cifer was hotheaded and Matt somehow pushed his every button, even without meaning to. However, this time, the smaller alpha was at a disadvantage after being blindsided by that alpha voice. Cifer flipped him onto his back just as his muffled shout escaped him. 

"F–"

That familiar hand grabbed the back of Matt's neck and forced him to eat stale mattress. It cut off his curse before the word manifested itself into reality, and every fiber of his being fought back against the hellish weight of Cifer's heavy body trapping him where he was. 

He couldn't breathe. Fuck, he almost blacked out again, but Cifer eased up on his neck and Matt turned his head to the side to suck in painful, greedy gasps of air. 

Cifer's weight never left, and Matt could feel the other man's knot wedged against his lower back. "Who the fuck said you could touch me like that?!"

"Use your fucking words, Cifer!"

"That's not my name!"

Matt was smothered a second time. He choked against the dry sheets, not willing to squirm too much. If he did, Cifer's cock would—shit, he needed air! 

"Say it, Matty," the pressure on Matt's neck eased up just enough for him to turn his cheek again and take another gulp of air. 

He could taste Cifer's pheromones. It was only making his head muddier. Coughing and sputtering, Matt's pride refused to give him what he wanted. With narrowed, wild eyes, he sent a look Cifer's way that would have had an omega instantly burst into tears. 

"Ubiytsa." 

Killer. The ugly moniker Cifer held. Probably an insult—no, definitely an insult, considering Cifer released the back of his neck and did something so fucking unspeakable, Matt couldn't comprehend it. Hot fingers tangled themselves into the longer parts of Matt's hair. For the third time, his head tilted to the side, but right now, it was different. 

A cry left him as teeth clamped threateningly down onto the crook of his neck. Not enough to break skin, but enough to stun Matt into remaining perfectly still. 

Oh, hell no.