Work Text:
The warning tape is bright yellow, a harsh, synthetic stripe cutting through the muted greys and whites of the forest. It is ugly. It offends Taehyung’s eyes.
He stands on the safe side of the path, his breath clouding the lens of his camera, which he was holding just below his chin. The locals call this stretch the “Black Forest,” not because of some fairytale whimsy, but because the trees grow so thick they choke out the light, and because cell phone reception dies the moment you step past the gravel shoulder. It is a dumping ground for rusted appliances and, if the rumors are true, things that were once alive.
Taehyung should turn back. His fingers are already numb inside his gloves. But then he sees it.
Something improbable. Twenty yards past the warning tape, amidst a tangle of dead brambles and dirty snow, something is blooming. It is a camellia, shocking and violent red, surviving in a landscape that wants it dead.
Taehyung doesn’t think. He doesn’t check for unstable ground. He simply ducks under the yellow barrier tape.
The snow is deeper here, swallowing his ankles, soaking his socks instantly. He moves with the singular tunnel vision of an addict. He needs to capture the composition being gifted to him by nature itself: the red flower, the white snow, the deep, black shadows of the pines.
He raises the camera, framing the shot. He adjusts the focus, blurring the background to make the red petals pop, creating a perfect isolated world in the viewfinder.
Click.
The mechanical click of the shutter breaks the forest's silence like a thick slab of ice cracking on a frozen lake.
Taehyung lowers the camera to check the display, satisfied with the capture. Then he looks up, his eyes naturally drifting back to the background he just blurred out.
Fifty yards away, the shadows are moving.
Two men stand by a black SUV that has been driven off-road, wheels caked in mud. Instead of hiking through the serene winter landscape, they are engaged in a grim task, their shovels biting into the chilled earth. The soil they turn over is fresh and dark against the snow. And on the ground beside them, wrapped in a blue tarp, is a shape that is unmistakably, horrifyingly human.
One of the men stops digging. He turns his head, looking straight at the splash of color in the brambles–straight at Taehyung, his eyes locking in on his dark, red hair sticking out from underneath his hat.
Taehyung freezes. The man reaches into his jacket.
The chase isn’t cinematic. It is clumsy and terrified. Taehyung scrambles back, his boots finding no purchase on the slick, frozen mud. He hears a shout behind him–guttural and angry–followed by the heavy slam of a car door.
He runs blindly, deeper into the trees, away from the road. Branches whip his face, stinging like lashes, catching on his trench coat, ripping his hat from his head. The camera, swinging wildly around his neck, is a pendulum of dead weight. He slips on a patch of ice, going down hard on his shoulder, the camera slamming hard into the frozen ground, and causing the strap to snap free.
The camera skitters away, sliding down a steep embankment and disappearing into a drift of snow.
Taehyung reaches for it–his eye, his memory, his proof–but the sound of crashing footsteps behind him forces him up. He leaves it. He runs until his lungs burn like he’s swallowed glass, until the expensive material of his shirt is plastered to his back with sweat.
He doesn’t know how long he runs, but the light begins to fail, turning the words into a monochromatic maze. Just as his legs are about to give out, he breaks through a line of trees and stops dead.
It sits in the throat of the valley like a secret.
The house doesn’t look built; it looks grown, straight from the forest. It is a jagged knot of dark timber and grey stone, blending perfectly with the towering pines. To anyone else, the column of white smoke rising from the chimney would be a beacon of warmth. To anyone else, the wall of split logs stacked on the porch would look like winter fuel.
But Taehyung stops, his chest heaving. He sees the way the windows are narrow slits. And the door is made of a thick, heavy wood rather than the standard front door of a cabin in the woods. It looks like a fortress disguised as a shack.
It is terrifying. It is the most beautiful thing he has seen all day.
He scrambles down the slope toward the creek that separates him from the door. The water is black and fast. He wades through, gasping as the icy water floods his ruined boots, biting into his skin like teeth. He stumbles up the bank, shivering violently.
He doesn’t knock. He can’t risk the noise. He tries the handle–locked, obviously–but the wood around the window frame is old. With a desperate shove, the latch gives way with a splintering crack.
Taehyung tumbles inside, collapsing onto the floorboards.
It is quiet inside. Not the silence of an empty house, but the heavy, waiting silence of a held breath.
Taehyung lies on the floor for a moment, waiting for his heart to stop hammering against his ribs. The heat hits him first–a dry, intense wave radiating from a massive iron stove in the center of the room. It smells of pine resin, gun oil, and cold iron.
He pulls himself up. The room is stark. No rugs, no pictures. Just walls of dark timber and shelves organized with terrifying precision. Canned goods, tools, boxes of ammunition.
Taehyung moves deeper into the room. He should be looking for a weapon or a phone. Instead, he finds himself drawn to a workbench along the far wall.
It is covered in tools, but they aren’t scattered. They are aligned perfectly by size. A heavy, rusted saw blade lies in the center, half-cleaned, smelling of solvent.
Taehyung reaches out. He traces the jagged teeth of the saw, fascinated by the contrast of the bright, sharpened steel against the dull orange rust. It is lethal and neglected, all at once.
The click of a hammer cocking back is the only warning he gets.
“Do you want to die?”
The voice is low and raspy, coming from the shadows near the door.
Taehyung freezes, his finger still resting on the saw blade. He turns slowly and comes to face a stranger, presumably the cabin’s owner.
He is pale, dressed in dark, utilitarian clothes that seem to swallow the light. He holds the shotgun with an ease that suggests it is an extension of his arm. But it is his face that holds Taehyung’s attention. There is a scar cutting vertically through his eyebrow, and his expression is a mask of exhausted, dangerous irritation.
He looks like the woods outside–cold, unyielding, and alive.
The man takes a step forward. The gun doesn’t waver. “I asked you a question. You break into my house, you track mud on my floor…do you have a death wish, or are you just stupid?”
Taehyung blinks. The adrenaline is fading, replaced by that strange, floaty detachment that always comes when he finds a perfect subject. He knows he should be begging for his life. He knows he should be terrified.
But the light from the stove is hitting the man’s face, illuminating the sharp angle of his jaw and the dark, abyssal depth of his eyes.
Taehyung tilts his head, water dripping from his red hair onto the oiled concrete floor.
“You have interesting eyes,” Taehyung whispers, his voice hoarse. “They look like the creek outside.”
The man falters. The gun barrel dips, just an inch, as confusion cracks his stoic mask. He looks at the intruder–shivering, soaking wet, bleeding from a scratch on his cheek–and realizes with sinking dread that the boy isn’t looking at the gun. He is looking at him, and he isn’t afraid.
He is captivated.
Yoongi doesn’t lower the gun. Not yet.
He stares at the boy–at the water pooling around his ruined boots, at the violent, unnatural shade of his wet hair, and finally at his eyes. There is no pupil dilation. No deceptive tell. The boy isn’t lying to buy time. He genuinely thinks Yoongi’s eyes are interesting.
“You’re in shock,” the man decides, his voice flat. “Or you’re high.”
“I’m cold,” Taehyung whispers. His teeth finally start to chatter, the adrenaline crash hitting him all at once. The tremor starts in his hands and rolls through his body until he is vibrating with it.
He curses under his breath–a sharp, ugly sound. He shifts his grip on the shotgun, flicking the safety back on with a metallic click, but he doesn’t put it away. He walks past Taehyung, roughly bumping his shoulder, and checks the window.
Outside, the wind is picking up, thrashing the pines. The snow is falling harder, erasing the footprints Taehyung made on the porch. That’s good. But the smoke…realization dawned.
“The chimney,” the man mutters. He turns back to Taehyung. “Strip.”
Taehyung blinks, sluggish. “What?”
“Your clothes. They’re wet. You’re dripping on my floor, and if you freeze to death in my living room, that’s a body I have to move.” Yoongi gestures vaguely to a narrow door on the other side of the stove. “Bathroom is through there. There’s a towel. Don’t touch anything else.”
Taehyung doesn’t argue. He moves like a sleepwalker, shivering so hard his movements are jerky. He fumbles with the buttons of his trench coat, his frozen fingers useless against the stiff, sodden wool.
Yoongi watches him struggle for exactly three seconds before his patience snaps. He leans the shotgun against the workbench and strides closer.
He slaps Taehyung’s hands away and undoes the buttons himself. “Stop. You’re making it worse.”
He is efficient, clinical. He strips the heavy coat off Taehyung’s shoulders and tosses it onto a clear section of the workbench. Underneath, the boy is wearing a silk shirt that is clinging to his skin like wet tissue paper.
His jaw tightens. Silk. In a blizzard. This boy really is from a different planet.
“Go,” he orders, pointing to the bathroom. “Hot water. Five minutes. If you take longer, I turn the boiler off.”
The bathroom is like the rest of the house: cold, slate-tiled, and smelling of bleach.
Taehyung turns the tap. The pipes groan, then shudder, spitting out water that is scalding hot. He hisses as it hits his frozen hands, but he doesn’t pull away. He peels off the wet silk, the ruined trousers. He steps under the spray.
It hurts. The heat feels like knives against his skin, waking up nerves that had gone numb miles ago. He leans his forehead against the tile of the shower wall and breathes in the steam.
He watches the water swirl around his feet. It isn’t clear.
Rivers of dark, cherry-red water run down his chest, over the tiles, and into the drain. It looks like he is bleeding out. Cheap dye. He had it done yesterday in the city, a whim because he was bored with the grey winter. Now, the hot water is leeching the color out of him.
He watches the “blood” swirl away, mesmerizing and rhythmic. He forgets to count the minutes.
The door bangs open.
Taehyung jumps, slipping on the wet tile. The man stands in the doorway, holding a bundle of grey fabric. He looks at the steam-filled room, then at the floor of the shower.
His eyes widen. For a split second, he is terrified. He sees the red water and thinks he missed a gunshot wound.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, dropping the bundle. He steps into the steaming shower, fully clothed, grabbing Taehyung’s arm and spinning him around to find the exit wound.
“I’m not–” Taehyung gasps, startled by the rough grip. “Hey! I’m not hurt.”
The man’s hand comes away from Taehyung’s wet shoulder. He looks at his own palm. It’s stained pink.
He looks up at Taehyung’s hair, which is plastered to his skull in dark, dripping strands.
“It’s hair dye,” Taehyung explains, pushing a wet lock out of his eyes.
The man stares at his own hand, then at the pink grout on his pristine slate floor. The relief in his chest is instantly replaced by a wave of irritation so intense it nearly chokes him.
“Red,” he says, incredulous. “You’re trespassing in a restricted zone in the middle of winter, and you dyed your hair red?”
“It looked nice,” Taehyung says defensively, shivering as the draft from the door hits him. “Before the hat came off.”
The man closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath through his nose, exhaling slowly. He looks like he is praying for patience, or perhaps counting the reasons why he shouldn’t drag this intruder back out to the creek.
“Get out,” he says, his voice dangerously quiet. “Dry off. Wrap your head in the towel before you stain anything else.”
He kicks the pile of clothes on the floor toward Taehyung.
“Put these on. And if I see one drop of pink water on my couch, I’m locking you in the cellar.” He stalks out, his wet clothes clinging to his wiry frame.
Taehyung emerges ten minutes later.
He is drowning in the stranger’s clothes. The grey sweatpants are rolled up at the ankles, but they still drag on the floor. The black thermal shirt is tight on his shoulders but hangs loose around his waist. He has wrapped the towel around his head like a turban, catching the red drips.
He looks ridiculous. He looks soft.
The man is sitting at the heavy wooden table, cleaning his shotgun. He has laid out a cloth, a bottle of oil, and a small brush. The smell of solvent is sharp in the warm air.
He doesn’t look up when Taehyung enters. “Sit. Don’t wander.”
Taehyung sits opposite him. He pulls his knees up to his chest, tucking his cold feet into the fabric of the sweatpants. He watches the man’s hands.
They are steady hands. He disassembles the weapon with a rhythm that speaks of muscle memory. Click, slide, snap. He dips the brush in oil and runs it along the barrel.
“You didn’t knock,” the man says, not breaking his routine.
Taehyung rests his chin on his knees. “I…I couldn’t.”
“The latch on the window,” the man continues, scrubbing a spot of carbon. “You forced it. And you came through the creek. Nobody crosses that water unless they have to.”
He stops scrubbing. He looks up, his gaze sharp and calculating. He is putting the pieces together now–the ruined expensive shoes, the lack of a car, the sheer panic in the boy’s eyes when he first walked in.
“You aren’t a hiker,” the man states. “Hikers have gear. You have fashionable boots and a silk shirt.” He sets the brush down. “Who is chasing you?”
Taehyung stiffens. The warmth of the room suddenly feels very far away. “I don’t know who they are.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.” Taehyung swallows hard. “I took a photo. Of a flower. They were in the background.”
The man’s eyes narrow. “In the background, doing what?”
“Digging.”
The silence in the cabin stretches, heavy and suffocating. The wood stove ticks as the metal expands. The man looks at the towel wrapped around Taehyung’s head, then at the darkened window behind him.
“Digging a hole,” the man repeated, more to himself than to Taehyung. “In the Black Forest.” He closes his eyes for a second, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “And they saw you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you keep the camera?”
“I dropped it.”
The man sighs–a heavy, exhausted sound. “So you have no evidence. No leverage. And they saw your face.” He opens his eyes, looking pointedly at the red stain seeping into the white towel. “And your hair.”
“Yes.”
The man picks up a rag and starts wiping down the firing pin. He scrubs hard, his knuckles turning white.
“You’re a liability,” he says, stating it like a fact about the weather. “You have no survival instinct. You treat a crime scene like an art gallery. And now you’re sitting in my house, leaking hair dye, waiting for them to track you here.”
Taehyung watches the movement of the rag. “Why did you let me stay?”
The man stops. He looks at the closed door, heavily bolted. He looks at the snow piling up against the window, sealing them in.
“Because,” the man says, his voice gravelly. “If I let you out there, you wouldn’t have lasted an hour. And I hate wasted things.”
He reassembles the gun with a loud, final clack. He sets it on the table, the barrel pointing away from Taehyung.
“I’m Min Yoongi,” he says, finally offering a name like a weapon he is reluctant to hand over. “You sleep in the loft. I take the couch. If you hear a car engine, you don’t ask questions. You get in the cellar. Understood?”
Taehyung nods. He reaches up, touching the damp towel around his head.
“Taehyung,” he returns. “Kim Taehyung.”
Yoongi doesn’t answer. He just pours a measure of oil onto the rag and starts scrubbing a spot on the table that isn’t really there.
The storm doesn’t break. It settles in.
By nightfall, the cabin is no longer just a shelter; it is a capsule buried in white. The wind has stopped howling and started screaming, a high, thin sound that vibrates through the heavy timbers of the walls. Snow is drifting high against the porch, sealing the bottom half of the windows in a wall of ice.
They are trapped.
Yoongi moves through the cabin with the restless energy of a caged animal. He checks the deadbolt. He checks the temperature of the stove. He checks the window shutters. Then he does it all again.
Taehyung sits at the table, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket Yoongi pulled from a chest. He hasn’t moved for an hour. He is simply watching.
He watches Yoongi open a can of stew with a knife, his movements precise and lethal. He watches Yoongi dump it into a cast-iron pot on the stove. He watches the firelight catch the scar on Yoongi’s eyebrow, turning the ridge of damaged skin into a white line against the flush of heat on his face.
“Stop it,” Yoongi blurts, without turning around. He is stirring the stew, the metal spoon scraping loudly against the iron.
“Stop what?”
“Staring. You’re burning a hole in my back.”
“There is nothing else to look at,” Taehyung says, his voice muffled by the blanket. “The windows are covered.”
Yoongi turns, leaning his hip against the stove. He crosses his arms, the ladle dripping thick brown gravy back into the pot. “You could look at the floor. You could sleep. You could worry about the men who want to kill you.”
“I am worried,” Taehyung says. But he doesn’t look it. He looks soft, drowned in the grey fabric, his cherry-red hair drying in wild, frizzy waves that halo his head in the firelight. He looks like a prince who has been turned into a pauper and finds the novelty fascinating.
“You’re not worried enough,” Yoongi counters. He grabs two tin bowls from a shelf and ladles the stew out. He slides one across the table to Taehyung. It slops over the rim, hot and messy. “Eat. It’s not restaurant food, but it’s calories.”
Taehyung pulls a hand out of his blanket cocoon. His fingers are long, elegant, and entirely unsuited for the dented tin spoon. He blows on the steam and takes a bite.
“It’s good,” he murmurs.
Yoongi snorts, sitting opposite him. “It’s sodium and preservatives. Don’t romanticize it.”
They eat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the wind and the click of spoons. Yoongi eats quickly and efficiently, as if he expects the meal to be interrupted. Taehyung eats slowly, savoring the heat.
“Why do you live here?” Taehyung asks, breaking the silence. “You aren’t a ranger. You aren’t a hunter.”
Yoongi pauses, a piece of potato halfway to his mouth. He looks at the dark timber walls, the barricaded door. “I like the quiet.”
“That’s a lie,” Taehyung challenges. He points the spoon at the wall of tools–the wrenches, the saws, the pristine organization. “You like control. You live here because out here, nothing happens unless you make it happen. No surprises.
Yoongi sets his spoon down slowly. He looks at Taehyung with a renewed wariness. The boy might be flighty, but he isn’t stupid. He notices things.
“And you?” Yoongi deflects, his voice low. “You walked past a warning tape because you saw a flower. You like chaos.”
“I like beauty,” Taehyung corrects. “Sometimes they are the same thing.”
“Beauty gets you killed,” Yoongi says harshly. “Beauty is the distraction that lets the predator get close. If you had been looking at the treeline instead of that damn camellia, you would have seen the SUV before they started digging.”
Taehyung considers this. He licks a drop of gravy from his lip, a flash of pink tongue against honeyed skin. Yoongi’s eyes track the movement before he can stop himself.
“If I had been looking at the treeline,” Taehyung says softly, “I never would have found this house. I would have stayed on the path.” He looks up, locking eyes with Yoongi. “I think the trade was worth it.”
Yoongi stares at him. The air in the cabin suddenly feels very thin, very hot. He stands up abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping against the floor.
“You’re done,” Yoongi says, grabbing Taehyung’s half-empty bowl. “Go to the loft. I’m killing the lights.”
The loft is warmer than the ground floor. Heat rises, pooling in the apex of the roof, trapping the smell of cedar and dry heat.
Taehyung lies on the narrow mattress, staring up at the heavy rafters. Yoongi gave him a sleeping bag, a heavy military-grade thing that smells like the rest of the house–clean, cold, and masculine.
He can’t sleep.
Through the gaps in the floorboards, he can see the main room below. The electric lights are off, killed to save the generator fuel. The only light comes from the glass door of the wood stove.
It casts a flickering, orange flow over the room, breathing in and out like a lung.
Taehyung rolls onto his stomach, pressing his face near the gap in the wood. He watches.
Yoongi isn’t sleeping. He is sitting on the leather couch, facing the door. The shotgun is across his lap. He is perfectly still, his head tipped back against the cushions, eyes open, watching the shadows dance on the ceiling.
He looks lonely. Not the romantic kind of lonely that Taehyung likes to photograph–the solitary figure on a cliff. This is a painful, grinding loneliness. It is the loneliness of a machine that has been left running in an empty room.
Taehyung watches him for a long time. He traces the line of Yoongi’s throat, the tense set of his shoulder. He wonders what it would feel like to touch that scar on his eyebrow. Would the skin be rough? Smooth?
Below, Yoongi shifts. He turns his head, looking up at the ceiling, straight at the gap where Taehyung is watching.
Taehyung pulls back, his heart hammering. He holds his breath.
“I can feel you watching me,” Yoongi's voice drifts up from the dark. It isn’t angry. It’s just tired. “Go to sleep, Taehyung.”
“I can’t,” Taehyung whispers back, his voice floating down from the loft. “The wind is too loud.”
A pause. The fire pops in the stove.
“Focus on the stove,” Yoongi directs. “Listen to the tick of the metal. Count the cooling cycles. It drowns out the wind.”
Taehyung rolls onto his back. He listens. Tick. Tick. Tick.
It is a mechanical, steady rhythm. The sound of Yoongi’s world.
“Yoongi?”
“What.”
“Are you going to sleep?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because one of us has to be the wolf,” Yoongi says, the words barely audible over the wind. “So you can play Red Riding Hood and sleep.”
Taehyung closes his eyes. He pulls the sleeping bag up to his chin, burying his nose in the scent of cedar and gun oil. He listens to the stove. He listens to the silence of the man guarding the door.
For the first time all day, he feels safe.
Morning doesn’t bring light. It brings more grey, diffuse gloom that barely penetrates the snow-blocked windows.
The storm has passed, leaving behind a silence so absolute it hurts the ears.
Yoongi is already awake–or he never slept–when Taehyung climbs down the ladder. The stove has been stoked; the coffee pot is percolating on top of the iron plate. The smell is rich and bitter.
“Drink,” Yoongi says, shoving a mug into Taehyung’s hand before his feet even hit the floor. “Then we figure out how to get you out of here.”
Taehyung takes the mug, wrapping his hands around the ceramic warmth. He is wearing the same borrowed clothes, his red hair a chaotic, frizzy mess. “The road will be blocked.”
“I have a truck. It has chains.” Yoongi moves to the window, peering through a crack in the shutters. “If we leave now, we can make the highway by noon. I'll drop you off at the police station two towns over. You tell them everything.”
“I don’t have proof,” Taehyung reminds him.
“You have your memory. You can ID the faces.” Yoongi turns, his expression hard. “And it gets you out of my house.”
Taehyung looks down into his black coffee. The rejection stings, sharp and sudden. He opens his mouth to argue, to say I don’t want to go, but the sound cuts him off.
Crunch.
It is distant, muffled by the snow, but to Yoongi’s ears, it is a thunderclap.
The sound of tires crushing fresh powder.
Yoongi freezes. He goes completely still, his head cocked to the side. “Quiet.”
Taehyung opens his mouth. Yoongi is across the room in a blur. He grabs Taehyung’s arms, his grip bruising, and hauls him away from the ladder, away from the light.
“They’re here,” Yoongi hisses, the whisper terrifyingly loud in the silence.
“How?” Taehyung gasps, stumbling as Yoongi drags him toward the kitchen area. “The storm–”
“Shit,” Yoongi spits. “The snow stopped an hour ago. They must have found something.”
He drops to his knees in the corner of the room, jamming his fingers into a gap between the wide floorboards. He heaves. A section of the floor groans and lifts, revealing a dark, square hole. The smell of damp earth and rotting potatoes wafts up.
The root cellar.
“Get in,” Yoongi orders.
Taehyung looks into the hole. It is pitch black. “Yoongi–”
“Now!” Yoongi shoves him. “Go all the way to the back. Behind the crates. Do not make a sound. Do not breathe too loudly. If they find you, they will kill you. If they find me hiding you, they kill us both.”
The engine noise is louder now. Close. Right on the other side of the creek.
Taehyung scrambles into the hole. The cold earth swallows him. He looks up, panic seizing his throat, catching one last glimpse of Yoongi’s pale, grim face.
“Trust me,” Yoongi whispers.
Then he drops the floorboards back into place.
Darkness slams down on Taehyung. He is utterly alone.
Above him, he hears the heavy, muffled thud of a car door closing. Then footsteps. Heavy boots on the porch stairs.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound vibrates through the floor, shaking dust onto Taehyung’s face. He claps a hand over his mouth, curls into a ball behind a stack of crates, and squeezes his eyes shut.
Taehyung holds his breath until his lungs burn, urging him to take a much-needed breath of air.
The darkness of the root cellar is absolute. It smells of wet soil and old burlap, a thick, cloying scent that chokes him. But the terror isn’t the smell; it’s the sound.
Every footstep above him sounds like a thunderclap.
The floorboards are thick, but they are old. He can hear the heavy, wet crunch of boots entering the main room. One set. Then two.
“You’re a hard man to find, Min.”
The voice is unfamiliar–smooth, corporate, and completely out of place in a wilderness cabin.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Yoongi’s voice replies. It is terrifyingly calm. It lacks the rough edge he uses with Taehyung. His voice is flat and cold. “And you’re trespassing. State your business and get out.”
“We’re looking for a boy,” the stranger says. “About this tall. Red hair. Wearing a coat that costs more than this house.”
Taehyung squeezes his eyes shut, burying his face in his hands. A tear leaks out, hot and fast, tracking through the dust on his cheek.
“Haven’t seen him,” Yoongi says.
“Really? Because we found a camera by the road. And this is the only cabin for ten miles.”
The camera. Taehyung’s stomach drops. He forgot about the camera.
“Lots of hikers lose gear,” Yoongi says, unimpressed. “Doesn’t mean they will come here.”
“Maybe,” the stranger says. “But I see fresh tracks on your porch, Min. Someone’s been walking in and out this morning.”
“I live here,” Yoongi counters, smooth as oil. “I went out for wood an hour ago. Unless it’s a crime to walk on my own porch, you have no cause to be here.”
There is silence. A heavy, shifting silence. The stranger knows Yoongi is technically right–the tracks belong to Yoongi–but he is testing the boundaries, seeing if Yoongi will give something away.
Then, a creak.
Someone is walking. The footsteps move away from the door. They are slow, deliberate. Thud. Thud. Thud.
They stop directly above Taehyung’s head.
Dust sifts down through the cracks in the planks, landing on Taehyung’s eyelashes. He doesn’t blink. He is paralyzed.
“Nice place,” the stranger says. “Cozy. A bit damp, though.”
The man shifts his weight. The boards groans.
“I didn’t invite you in for a tour,” Yoongi snaps. The sound of a shotgun racking–clack, clack–cuts through the room. “The snow covered everything last night. If the boy is out there, he’s buried under three feet of powder.”
A pause. The tension in the air above is heavy enough to crush the house.
“If you see him,” the stranger says, his voice dropping an octave, “you call us. He stole something very dangerous. He’s a threat to…public safety.”
“If I see a trespasser,” Yoongi says, “I’ll handle it.”
“I bet you will.”
The weight lifts. The footsteps retreat. The door opens, letting in a gust of wind that whistles through the floorboards, chilling Taehyung’s sweat-drenched skin.
“Drive safe,” Yoongi says.
The door slams shut. The lock slides home.
Taehyung stays curled in a ball. He doesn’t move when the engine starts. He doesn’t move when the sound of the tires fades into the distance. He is frozen, his body locked in a rigor of panic.
Suddenly, light explodes into the cellar.
The floorboards are ripped back. Yoongi stands silhouetted against the grey light of the windows, his chest heaving. He looks wild–wide eyes, hair messy, the shotgun discarded on the table behind him.
“Taehyung.”
It isn’t a question. Yoongi reaches down, grabs Taehyung by the back of the thermal shirt, and hauls him up.
Taehyung scrambles out, his legs giving way the moment his feet hit the solid floor. He collapses, gasping for air, clutching at Yoongi’s arms to stay upright. He is shaking so hard his teeth rattle.
“They were right there,” Taehyung chokes out, his voice a broken sob. “They were right there.”
“They’re gone,” Yoongi says. He is gripping Taehyung’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the muscle. “Breathe. You're safe.”
“I’m not,” Taehyung gasps. The adrenaline isn’t fading; it’s mutating. It’s turning into something hot and frantic. He feels like he’s going to vomit or scream. “I thought you were going to give me up. I thought–”
“I didn’t,” Yoongi growls. He gives Taehyung a rough shake. “Look at me. I didn’t.”
Taehyung looks up. Yoongi’s face is inches from his. The scar on his brow is stark white against his flushed skin. His eyes are dark and wide with the same adrenaline that is coursing through Taehyung.
The distance between them snaps.
It isn’t a romantic decision. It is a biological imperative. They have just survived uncertain danger.
Taehyung surges forward, burying his hands in Yoongi’s shirt, and smashes their mouths together.
It is clumsy. It is violent. It tastes like fear and dust. Yoongi stiffens for a fraction of a second, shocked by the impact, and then he folds.
He makes a low, desperate noise in his throat and grabs Taehyung’s face, kissing him back with a hunger that borders on anger. He pushes Taehyung backward until his hips hit the heavy wooden table, pinning him there.
“You idiot,” Yoongi murmurs against his mouth, biting at Taehyung’s lower lip. “You reckless, stupid…”
“Shut up,” Taehyung pants, dragging Yoongi closer, tangling his fingers in Yoongi’s hair. “Don’t talk.”
He doesn’t want words. Words are for lying. He wants this–the clash, the heat, the grounding weight of Yoongi’s body pressing the panic out of him. He needs to feel something other than the cold earth of that root cellar.
Yoongi lifts him, rough hands gripping Taehyung’s thighs, hoisting him onto the edge of the table. He steps between Taehyung's legs, pressing flush against him. The contact is electric. The contrast they established–the soft, shivering boy and the hard, unyielding wolf–collides.
Yoongi’s hands are everywhere–under the loose thermal shirt, touching the cold skin of Taehyung’s waist, mapping his ribs. His palms are rough, calloused from the workshop, and the scratch of them makes Taehyung arch his back, a gasp tearing out of his throat.
Taehyung is ice cold. The damp chill of the root cellar has seeped into his marrow, making his skin feel like marble. Yoongi, burning with the chemical heat of adrenaline and the stifling warmth of the cabin, hisses at the temperature difference.
“You’re freezing,” Yoongi mutters against his skin, burying his face in the crook of Taehyung’s neck. He shifts his grip, sliding his hands further around to span Taehyung’s lower back, pressing him relentlessly closer. He is trying to bleed his own heat into the boy, to force the cold out through sheer friction. “Let me warm you up.”
“Yoongi,” Taehyung whines, the sound wrecked and needy. He tilts his head back, exposing his throat. “Please.”
He doesn’t know what he is begging for–safety, oblivion, or just more friction–but Yoongi understands.
Yoongi pulls back, his eyes dark and seeking. He looks at Taehyung–at the flushed cheeks, the swollen lips, the cherry-red hair messy and bright against the grey timber of the cabin. He looks at the beautiful, dangerous thing he has trapped in his house.
“Okay,” Yoongi whispers, his voice dropping into a register that makes Taehyung shiver. “Okay.”
He kisses the pulse jumping frantically in Taehyung’s throat, his lips pressing hard against the thin, pale skin. He can feel the blood hammering there, an erratic, terrified rhythm that matches the shaking of Taehyung’s hands. It tastes like salt and dust.
Yoongi’s hands move to the waistband of the borrowed sweatpants. His fingers hook into the elastic, but he doesn’t push them down. Not yet. Instead, he slides his palms underneath the fabric, skimming over the sharp jut of Taehyung’s hipbones.
The contact is a shock to the system.
Taehyung gasps, a broken, wet sound. He arches his back, seeking the heat of Yoongi’s palms. The sensation of Yoongi’s calloused fingertips–rough from handling the steel and solvent in his workshop– scraping against his sensitive skin is overwhelming. It anchors him. It drags him out of the dark, suffocating memory of the cellar and pins him to the bright, sharp reality of the kitchen.
“Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop,” Taehyung whines, his head falling back, exposing the long, elegant line of his throat.
Yoongi doesn’t. He pushes the loose thermal shirt up, bunching the fabric under Taehyung’s arms. He needs to see him.
The pale light from the window washes over Taehyung’s chest. He looks wrecked and beautiful. His skin is flushed pink in patches from where Yoongi’s roughened hands handled him, and his cherry-red hair is a messy halo, damp strands sticking to his forehead. He looks like something that has been broken open.
Yoongi drags his mouth up from Taehyung’s throat to his jaw, his teeth grazing the skin, threatening but controlled. He captures Taehyung’s lips again. It is sloppy and deep and starving. Yoongi tastes the copper tang of blood where Taehyung bit down on his own lip too hard in the cellar.
Taehyung’s legs wrap instinctively around Yoongi’s waist, pulling him harder into the cradle of his thighs. The movement knocks a tin cup off the table. It hits the floor with a loud clang, but neither of them flinches. The world has narrowed down to this: the hard surface of the wooden table beneath him, and the heavy, solid weight of the world pressing him down.
Yoongi pulls back just an inch, his breathing ragged. He looks at Taehyung with a terrifying intensity–possessive, angry, and desperate.
“You’re here,” Yoongi growls, his thumbs pressing into the soft skin of Taehyung’s hips, leaving marks that will bruise later. “You aren’t in the ground. You’re here with me.”
Taehyung reaches up, his trembling fingers tracing the scar on Yoongi’s brow, then tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. He pulls Yoongi back down.
“Make me feel it,” Taehyung whispers against Yoongi’s lips, his eyes fluttering shut as he surrenders to the heat. “Make me sure.”
Yoongi’s hands are impatient, shoving the grey sweatpants down over Taehyung’s hips. The cold air of the cabin bites at Taehyung’s exposed skin, a sharp, stinging contrast to the fever-heat of Yoongi’s body pressing between his knees.
Taehyung shudders, his breath hitching in his chest. He feels exposed—not just physically, but elementally. He is stripped bare in a room built for survival, open to the wolf who owns it.
“Look at me,” Yoongi demands, his voice a low rasp, roughly grating against Taehyung’s ear. He doesn’t wait for compliance; he grabs Taehyung’s chin, forcing his head up. “I need you to see this.”
Taehyung’s eyes flutter open, hazy and dark. He looks at Yoongi—at the sweat beading on his temple, the raw tension in his jaw, his dilated pupils. It isn’t a look of tenderness.
Yoongi traces the rough tips of his fingers across Taehyung’s pelvis to dip between them, searching until long, skilled fingers wrap around Taehyung’s rigid length. He tries to fight it, but he can't. Taehyung’s eyes slip closed at the same time a moan slips through his swollen lips. He snaps them open again at the stinging reprimand Yoongi leaves with his free hand on his hip.
“Ow,” Taehyung pouts, hips jerking forward in Yoongi’s grips.
“I said eyes open.” Yoongi smirks. His eyes bore into Taehyung’s, the intensity nearly eclipsing the pleasure his hand was wringing from Taehyung’s throbbing cock. He draws the hand that was wrapped around him between their faces, and arches his scarred brow.
It takes a minute. Taehyung’s eyes take a moment to blink fully back into focus before tilting his head down and spitting in Yoongi’s broad palm.
“Good boy.” Yoongi slips his hand back in between them to grip Taehyung’s aching cock. His grip on Taehyung is firm, but the glide is smoother now as he draws the most delectable sounds from the younger man’s throat.
It isn’t slow. There isn’t time for that. The threat of the Huntsmen still hangs in the dust motes dancing in the light, and their bodies move with the frantic energy of stolen time. Yoongi’s hand moves with punishing rhythm–a hard, steady cadence that drives Taehyung closer with each upward flick of his wrist.
Taehyung arches back, the hard wood of the table digging into the back of his thighs, bruising him. He clings to Yoongi’s shoulders, his nails digging into the heavy canvas of the jacket Yoongi hadn’t even bothered to take off. The rough fabric scrapes his palms, another texture in the overwhelming sensory storm.
“Yoongi,” Taehyung gasps, the word fracturing on a sob. “Yoongi, I’m—”
“I’ve got you,” Yoongi growls, ducking his head to bite the sensitive cord of muscle where Taehyung’s neck meets his shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere.”
On the next upward snap of his wrist, Yoongi thumbs at the sensitive slit of Taehyung’s cock, sending blinding, white-hot pleasure through Taehyung that makes his toes curl. The detachment that usually protects Taehyung—the camera lens he puts between himself and the world—shatters completely. He can’t observe this. He can only drown it.
He is crying, he realizes. Not from sadness, but from the sheer, overwhelming relief of being touched, of being held, of being alive.
Yoongi feels the wetness on Taehyung’s cheek. He kisses the tears away, tasting the salt, his movements becoming jagged and desperate. Yoongi grits his teeth, his own cock a burgeoning ache in his pants. He is unraveling, his control snapping under the weight of Taehyung’s need and his own terrifying desire.
“Taehyung,” Yoongi chokes out, his voice wrecked.
The end comes like the storm from the night before—violent and total. Taehyung arches away from the table, a ragged cry from his throat, his body seizing in Yoongi’s arms. He grips Yoongi blindly, his nails biting into rough fabric as he releases all the pent-up fear in a torrent over Yoongi’s fist. Encased in his own haze of pleasure, he hears Yoongi’s harsh groan and feels his body shudder as he follows him over the edge.
For a long moment, the only sound in the cabin is their harsh, synchronized breathing and the ticking of the wood-burning stove.
Yoongi collapses forward, resting his forehead on Taehyung’s shoulder. His weight is heavy, crushing, and perfect. Taehyung wraps his arms around Yoongi's back, burying his face in the rough collar of the jacket. He smells the gun oil, the pine resin, and the sweat.
The cooler air of the cabin begins to creep back in, swirling around their damp skin, but Taehyung doesn’t shiver. He feels the heat radiating from Yoongi’s chest, a furnace that burns just for him.
Yoongi lifts his head slowly. He looks at Taehyung–at the swollen lips, the tear tracks cutting through the dust on his cheeks, the wild red hair.
Yoongi reaches out, his hand shaking slightly, and brushes a strand of hair away from Taehyung’s eyes. The gesture is shockingly gentle, at odds with the roughness of the last few minutes.
“You okay?” Yoongi whispers, his voice rasping.
Taehyung blinks, his eyes struggling to focus. He feels exhausted, hollowed out, and wonderfully, undeniably real.
“Yeah,” Taehyung breathes, a small, tired smile touching his lips. “I’m okay.”
The separation is reluctant, but necessary.
Yoongi pulls away first, his movements stiff as he feels the mess he made in his own pants. As he steps back and helps Taehyung straighten up before picking up the discarded sweatpants from the floor. He shakes off the dust before handing them back.
He doesn’t look at Taehyung before disappearing into the bathroom to clean himself up.
The lock clicks. It is a small sound, but in the sudden silence of the cabin, it sounds like a gunshot.
Taehyung is left standing in the middle of the room, clutching the waistband of the borrowed sweatpants. The heat Yoongi left on his skin begins to evaporate, replaced by the biting chill of the drafty room. He pulls the pants up with trembling fingers, feeling suddenly, violently exposed,
He listens to the pipes groan, followed by the hiss of the shower.
The sound is isolating. It reminds him that ten minutes ago, they were strangers on opposite sides of a gun. Now, they are…what? Survivors? Lovers? Or just two terrified people who needed to feel something other than fear?
Taehyung wraps his arms around himself, sinking onto the edge of the couch and sitting as close to the warm stove as he can to capture some warmth. He feels raw—tenderized by the encounter and vibrating with a strange, buzzing energy that has nowhere to go. He stares at the bathroom door. He wonders if Yoongi is washing Taehyung off.
He waits. The minutes stretch out, heavy and suffocating.
When the water finally stops, the silence that follows is worse.
The door opens. Yoongi steps out.
The transformation is absolute. The man who had unraveled in Taehyung’s arms—desperate, vocal, and needy—is gone. In his place stands the wolf.
Yoongi is fully dressed. He has changed into fresh tactical pants and a heavy black flannel buttoned all the way to his throat. His hair is wet, combed back severely from his forehead. He looks armored. He looks impenetrable.
He moves past Taehyung without making eye contact, his boots heavy on the floorboards, heading straight for the kitchen. He looks like nothing happened.
Taehyung feels a sting behind his eyes—sharp and sudden. It feels like rejection. It feels like the safety he thought he found was just a hallucination brought on by the cold.
“Yoongi?” Taehyung whispers, the name feeling fragile in the cold air.
Yoongi doesn’t turn around. He grabs a duffel bag and starts stripping the shelves of canned goods, his movements jerky and aggressive.
“We have to move,” Yoongi says, his voice rough. He clears his throat, “They’ll be back. Not the ones who knocked, but a clean-up crew. Once they verify I’m not on the payroll anymore, they won’t knock next time.”
“Yoongi,” Taehyung says again. The name feels heavy in his mouth now.
Yoongi pauses, a can of mandarin oranges in his hand. He doesn’t turn around.
“He knew your name,” Taehyung presses, stepping closer. The heat between them is still there, a tangible thing, but the fear is creeping back in. “He called you ‘Min.’ You didn’t sound surprised. You sounded…resigned.”
Yoongi sets the can down. He leans his hands on the counter, his head hanging low.
I wasn’t always a mechanic,” Yoongi says to the sink. “I used to be the guy they called when they needed a problem to stop breathing. That’s why they knocked. Professional courtesy.”
Taehyung stares at Yoongi’s back. He looks at the broad shoulders that had just pinned him to a table, the hands that were shockingly gentle, brushing hair from his eyes. He should be horrified. He should be backing away toward the door.
“You were one of them,” Taehyung realizes, his voice barely a whisper.
Yoongi turns slowly. The harsh light from the window catches the scar on his brow, making it look deeper, more jagged. He looks exhausted.
“I was worse than them,” Yoongi corrects. “Because I was better at it.” He picks up the duffel bag, his eyes dark and guarded. “And now I’m the only thing standing between you and a shallow grave.
He walks past Taehyung, heading for the door. “Get your things. We’re leaving.”
Taehyung moves like a ghost through the cabin. He picks up his ruined trench coat from the workbench. It is dry now, but stiff and stained with mud. He puts it on. It feels like armor.
He looks around the room one last time, checking for anything left behind. His eyes land on the table where they had just been and had eaten the night before.
There is a piece of paper there, folded and shoved under the fruit bowl.
It’s the back of a target sheet—thick, heavy paper Yoongi uses for shooting practice. On the blank side, sketched in pencil, is a drawing.
Taehyung had drawn it the previous evening, during the long, heavy silences. While Yoongi was focused on the oil and metal of his gun-cleaning ritual and later on fixing them a utilitarian dinner, Taehyung had been working too.
It isn’t a drawing of the cabin. It is a drawing of the scene from the woods.
Yoongi comes back inside, stomping snow off his boots. “Truck’s ready. Let’s—”
He stops. He sees Taehyung holding the paper.
Yoongi walks over and snatches the drawing from Taehyung’s hand. He looks at it, his eyes narrowing.
“You drew this?
“I needed to do something with my hands,” Taehyung says quietly. “And I couldn’t get the image out of my head. The contrast…the way the light hit the shovel.”
Yoongi stares at the sketch. The graphite lines are smudged but precise. He traces a thumb over the face of the digging man. It isn’t a generic face. Taehyung, with his obsessive eye for detail, captured the specific slope of the nose, the receding hairline, and a distinct, heavy ring on the left hand.
“This is him,” Yoongi says. It isn’t a question.
“Yes. That’s the man who saw me.”
Yoongi looks up at Taehyung, a strange mix of disbelief and respect on his face. “You dropped the camera, but you kept the image.”
He folds the paper carefully, sliding it into his inside jacket pocket.
“We have a face,” Yoongi says. “We can ID him. If we know who he is, we know who sent him. That’s leverage.” He looks at Taehyung, really looks at him, seeing past the ruined clothes and the red hair. “Your obsession might have just saved our lives.”
Yoongi grabs his keys. “Let’s go. Before they realize I didn’t actually go out for wood.”
The drive is a blur of white and grey.
Yoongi drives the way he handles a gun–controlled, precise, and dangerous. The truck skids over the icy track, the tires fighting for purchase on the unplowed road, but Yoongi corrects the slide without flinching. His hands are loose on the wheel, reacting to the terrain before the truck even shudders.
Taehyung sits in the passenger seat. He watches the trees whip by. He watches the cabin disappear in the side mirror, swallowed by the pines and heavy drifts of snow.
They hit the main road. The plow hasn’t come through yet, leaving a chaotic landscape of ruts and ice.
“Where are we going?” Taehyung asks, his voice barely audible over the roar of the engine.
“Safe house,” Yoongi replies, eyes scanning the horizon. “I have a contact in the city. A journalist. She owes me a favor. We give her the sketch, we give her the location of the body. She makes it loud. Once it’s in the news, they can’t kill you quietly.”
“And you?” Taehyung asks. “What happens to you?”
Yoongi tightens his grip on the steering wheel. The knuckles of his right hand are white, the skin around his nails stained with grease.
“I disappear again,” Yoongi says. “Somewhere else. Somewhere warmer, maybe. They know my face now. They know I’m active.”
Taehyung looks at Yoongi’s profile–the sharp jaw, the scar cutting through his brow, the stoic set of his mouth. He thinks about the heat of the cabin. He thinks about how Yoongi anchored him to the table when the world was spinning.
“Don’t,” Taehyung says.
Yoongi glances at him, a flicker of surprise in his dark eyes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t disappear.”
Taehyung reaches out. He places his hand on Yoongi’s arm, right over the heavy canvas of his jacket. It is a bold move—a claim.
“I need a driver,” Taehyung says, echoing the thought he had when he first saw Yoongi’s hands on the wheel. “And you need someone to remind you that the world isn’t just targets and threats.”
Yoongi looks back at the road. The silence stretches between them, filled only by the roar of the heater and hiss of tires on snow.
For a long time, Yoongi doesn’t answer. He just drives, putting miles between them and the Huntsmen.
Then, slowly, Yoongi’s hand shifts on the gear stick. He turns his palm up, brushing his rough fingers against Taehyung’s knuckles. It is a slight touch—a promise.
“We’ll see,” Yoongi says, his voice rough. “Let’s survive the day first.”
Taehyung smiles. He leans back in the seat, watching the white world blur into a streak of light. He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.
He strayed from the path, and the wolf caught him. And for the first time in his life, he has no intention of running away.