WARMING UP TO SURVIVE [NSFW]

He should leave Cifer here to die. It solved every problem he had. There were plenty of things around that he could use to slit the man's throat and be done with it. That was the safer decision. The blond was notorious for just not fucking dying, and Matt didn't want the headache. Hell, he'd already thrown the barbarian to the ground, turned his back and started the search for an implement of Cifer's death. 

Kill Cifer. Follow the tracks along the mountains and avoid the cliffs as much as possible, so when the land decides to upheave itself, Matt wouldn't get caught in a landslide. He just had to make it back to Nizhny Novgorod. With what few rubles he'd plundered which somehow survived the heat—and the fall—he could mug someone at the station and buy himself a ticket back to Moscow. 

Easy. So fucking easy. Just avoid the Kremlin looking for him with the same techniques he had during the war. Just—

Kill him. 

The image of Cifer on his knees flashed through his mind the moment his bruised digits found a large shard of broken glass. They hesitated. 

That look. Those words. Matt knew, deep inside his heart, that something was rotting in the state of Denmark. Frozen fingers pulled away from the item on the ground, although he crouched instead of leaned down to look at it. 

Cifer was already bleeding. Wasn't it a mercy to just kill him now and be done with it? 

That dead, glassy look Cifer had on his face when he betrayed Matt the first time, embedding his blade into the boy's chest, invaded his brain. 

… What if none of this was what it seemed? What if Cifer…? No, what if Matt was wrong about everything? If he killed him now, he'd never know the truth. Oxygen stuttered and burned in his lungs as he dragged a hand down his face. That metal mask had flown off and landed somewhere earlier. He'd try to find it later, but for right this second, he was cold. 

And tired. Hungry. Bruised and… 

Matt's hand came up to brush the spot on the back of his neck where Cifer's breath always ghosted against him when they slept. The same spot it always had, ever since they were small.

… Fuck. 

Unsteadily forcing his adrenaline-fueled body to its feet, Mattias trudged back to where he'd abandoned the blond and set to work picking the warm bastard up in a fireman's carry. 

Even while passed out and dying, the stupid prick always made Matt's life difficult. 

… § … 

The hissing crackle of damp, barely burning wood was an unpleasantly familiar one. 

Matt's knees tucked up against his chest as far as his injured body would allow. Mind wandering, he fought against the urge to sleep. His gaze remained locked on the passed out blond by the fire. Getting here had been a slog, but at least he'd made it. 

It was a matter of scouring the area for a cave entrance that didn't look like it was ready to come crashing down. One that was both sheltered and open enough to have a fire without choking them out from the smoke. Also, it needed to be secluded enough not to be seen that easily from the air. 

It was still a risk, camping in these shaky mountains. But it was the only option they had. Getting rather lucky and finding something even somewhat adequate, Matt settled on this dinky little hole in the rocks. He'd dropped Cifer off in here, then returned to the crash site. Matt had gone through the wreckage as best he could, finding anything that might be useful and tossing it onto a makeshift sleigh. 

But his illness was overtaking him again and his adrenaline was running low, so he'd returned and made bandages out of what he'd found. Cifer's wounds weren't too deep, they just bled a lot. Matt did what he could to clean and close them before he'd set up a fire and collapsed. Cauterizing the other man's wounds always seemed to heal him the fastest, so that's what Matt did. He heated some strips of shredded metal he found and did it easily enough.

Matt neglected his own wounds, but he was already infected and dying. There isn't much point in wasting what energy he has left on fighting the inevitable. Without dialysis out here, the rot would claim his sanity first. Then his life. 

Once he was certain no other enemies or dangerous animals were about, the man attempted to sleep. Impermanent, nightmare induced thoughts melted into strange dreams of regret and self loathing. But he was sleeping too feverishly to remember anything. At one point, during his half-passed out experience, the fire almost went out. 

So he did the only thing he could do. He stoked the fire, then begrudgingly slipped himself into Cifer's makeshift bed for warmth. It was more like a nest made of clothing all strewn together, but it's better than nothing. Besides, the traitor was a space heater because of his ability, and the instant Matt pressed their chests together and brought one of Cifer's limp arms around him, he felt much better. 

One last check to make sure his tainted blood wouldn't soak through his makeshift bandages and get all over Cifer occurred before he drifted back into a hollow slumber. 

… § … 

Solid, rough and warm, something was toying with Matt's split, chattering lips. It brought the man out of whatever state between life and death he'd been swimming through, initiating a displeased sigh as it did. Muscles flexed, testing their soreness through a mental fog while whatever it was, continued to mess with his mouth. His back was frozen, but his front was warm. 

He shivered terribly.

Gentle, intimate teasing worked him to life in more ways than one. That warmth pulled his mouth apart, pressing itself between his swollen lips. The taste of fire and caramel salted his tongue. Rumbles of discontentment at the annoying touch fell together with a pleased hum at the flavor. 

By the time Matt finally opened his eyes, his body realized what was happening before he did and he was already half-mast. 

Cifer's hand was caressing his cheek—his massive thumb had invaded Matt's mouth while he'd been asleep. The man seemed hyper focused on feeling the slick of Matt's tongue. Too exhausted to make sense of it, Matt's eyes followed the curve of the thumb between his teeth, back to the hand that owned it. Eventually, his eyes followed along until they saw the man's face. 

Cifer was looking at Matt with those bright, gorgeous blue eyes as though he were seeing him for the first time. It was a raw, unfiltered intensity and awe like the smaller man had never seen before. As though magic had suddenly become real, Cifer was staring at him like it was happening entirely on Matt's face. Stunned by their proximity after having utterly forgotten he moved over here in the first place, the smaller alpha sucked in a sharp breath and attempted to sort out his hammering heart. 

Three seconds later, he brought his teeth down against Cifer's thumb out of sheer aggravation about being woken up like that. But that altogether inappropriate intimacy Cifer displayed didn't have him clamp down very hard at all. 

Cifer hissed between his teeth. "... God, you're pretty when you sleep."

"... You h-hith your heath thoo hard?"

Ah, shit. He wanted to sound angry. So much for that.

Cifer laughed; the wrinkles forming in his eyes rapidly twisted into a wince before he'd even finished. 

"... Yeah. I did."

Matt's brows twitched together, and he'd been about to say something when that thumb pressed deeper inside his mouth. 

"What about you? You good, Princess? You're weaker than I am."

Matt was building a whole-ass new shelf inside his head. He was reinforcing it, buying only the best of materials, and creating individual pedestals for display. After he finished, he'd take Cifer's entire audacity and slap it onto that shelf to be pulled up again later. He refused to let that thing Cifer just said go. Never.

When he wasn't exhausted, cold as hell, sick and numb. For now, the look on his face probably would have made a tiny child cry. He brought his hand up to snatch at Cifer's wrist, yanking that thumb out of his mouth. 

"Fuck you, Zak."

Cifer's eyes widened, his bruised lips parting soundlessly before they snapped shut again. 

"... You pick weird places to fuck in, you know that?" 

Matt balked. 

"What? Where did you g-get that idea?" 

Lord, help him. This man may be pretty, but holy hell, was Cifer ever dumb. Matt swore his anger made him feel a little warmer, but the cold at his back faintly made him realize the fire had gone out again and the cave was dark. The only reason he could see was a morning sunbeam peaking through the maw of the cave. 

"You. Just now. You said my name."

Matt groaned so hard it hurt his messed up ribs. "You beat me over the head with it, and now I can't say it because it somehow gets you off? What else am I supposed t-o call you?"

This was getting silly. He shivered harder.

"... Not my fault you…" 

Cifer's hand shifted and slid down Matt's shoulder. Excitement thrummed in his belly, panging a sweet, hard throb going straight to his cock. Matt went to pull away, but as soon as Cifer's life saving heat in the darkness waned, he snapped himself back into place. 

"I'm serious. We're too fucked up. I need my meds. You lost your sword, and the Kremlin will be here in a matter of hours, if they're n-ot already. We need to rest, hunt, eat, and g-get moving. You can't just–"

Cifer's hand tickled down Matt's clothed spine. He'd stolen a couple of shirts and a jacket from the cargo, layering himself up in an effort to keep warm. It hadn't helped, apparently. That biting, Russian wind had settled deep inside his bones. And yet, the heat of the larger alpha's fingers through all those layers at once drew Matt's jaw tight. It felt just as warm as it was arousing.

"... You're freezing. And hard," Cifer replied. 

Did he just ignore everything that came out of Matt's mouth? Wait, no. Of course he did. Matt snuck a hand between their plastered bodies and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. 

"Doesn't matter. We need to get the hell out of here and make it back to the ruins before Lev or the Kremlin find us. I need you to stop thinking with your knot for l-onger than five seconds, please."

Cifer's hand finally halted its teasing. 

"... Who the fuck said you get to come up with the plan?"

Ah, there he is.

"Me. You're compromised."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"... You know damn well what it means."

Silence clung heavier than the biting frost of Russia's freshly fallen snow. It was driving Matt insane. Ignoring the ache in his knot, Matt painfully rolled his shoulders back so he could look Cifer in the eyes and straighten his chin. 

"Tell me how to help you talk to me." Matt replied in Russian.

Cifer's expression screwed up as though he'd been shot. The man choked on himself, his eyes rapidly searching Matt's face before they fell back into that dead-fish stare. His body relaxed completely, arm falling limp against Matt's waist as he watched that ugly corpse-like state slowly consume him. 

"... I don't know what you're talking about. I don't need any help."

Russian. Monotonous. Nothing but soulless lies. Matt hated every second of it. 

"... Okay. You don't n-need any help. We're going back to the ruins."

"Why?"

"Because you don't 'need any help.'"

"... I don't need any help."

This was upsetting. Matt brought his trembling hand up, clapping Cifer's cheek as his heart leapt into his throat. 

"Hey. Stay with me. Act normal."

For a few baited breaths, it appeared as though the corpse was here to stay. However, right when Matt was about to say it again, Cifer gasped something awful and curled in against Matt, wrapping his hulking arms around the smaller man's body. The embrace dragged him in, making him hiss. 

Cifer's muscles strained, trembling either with the cold, the pain and the effort, or something Matt just didn't understand. The blond was hugging him like he was the last person on earth. Trapped with a grunt, the smaller alpha's shut his eyes and tried to ignore the odd stab of his heart at how personal this was. All he knew was that the two of them were shivering together.

They were alphas. It's bad enough Matt and Cifer were using each other to get off, but this? It's like every time Matt blinked, Cifer was shoving them deeper past the line of no return. He was driving more nails into their coffins, deliberately encasing them both in an unspoken den of sick, unnatural sin. 

Matt's vision went wonky and his knot gave a painful twitch. "Fuck."

"... You smell…"

Matt cut the other man, "don't start."

"You're cold, right?"

"Cifer."

"You said we need to rest, hunt, and eat?"

What, not even half a flinch at being called his actual name? Stress built up inside Matt's belly, growing uglier by the second. It mingled with the heat that pooled in his core, and inexplicably, it only made his length grow even stiffer.

"We're not gonna w-waste our energy on—"

"Warming up isn't wasting energy."

Cifer gripped Matt's thigh, bringing it to rest between the larger man's legs. His eyes lidded, teeth gnashing when he felt a rush of heat and sex permeating from the other man's erection as it pressed against Matt. 

"... This is fucked up."

"Why do you always say that?"

"Because it is."

"Shut up, Matty."

Protest died the second a rare call of his name flew breathlessly from the blond's throat. 

"... It's just getting warm. Don't think too deep."

Shit.

"... What do you w-want?"

"You."

Shit!

Cifer's hand found its way to Matt's ass, and his alpha instincts woke up again. He bared his teeth at the larger man, but all that seemed to do was make him roll his hips against Matt a little harder. The teenage hormonal alpha in him started to lose his will to fight. It withered and crumbled dangerously when the hand on his ass pressed between their aching bodies and found Matt's knot. 

"Just…" 

Cifer's hand squeezed his weeping cock through all those layers, and Matt couldn't stop the masculine moan that broke his concentration and whittled away the last of his willpower. 

"You said I could do whatever I want, remember? I want to make you warm."