“No deed can ever be passed without traces, done without shadows, gone without remains.” - Noha Alaa El-Din
➺ Tentative Posting Date: TBD
➺ Banner: @jaeism made this beauty and tolerated my picky ass so thank you! 💛
➺ Pairing: Taehyung x Reader
➺ Trope: Crime/Mystery, Strangers/Enemies to Lovers
➺ Genre: Angst, Smut
➺ Rating: +18
➺ Teaser Word Count: 843
➺ Summary: A criminal who helps you solve his crime, subtly, quietly - the complications of this case worsen and your moral code is turned upside down when your heartbeat changes after a feverish night. What do you do? You want to call him a sinner… but why do your lips want to call him your lover?
➺ Warnings: None for the teaser, but the main fic will contain smut.
➺ Author’s Note: Teaser was beta read by @taegularities and @lavienjin, big thanks to these two lovelies who made sure I could English properly. This is my first 'plot-heavy' fic, so I guess I'm not fully sure what I'm doing without a dick in my hand, but I do hope you enjoy it. :) Please send in an ask if you're interested in the taglist!
Part of my Virtue, Vice and Everything Nice collab, find more at it’s masterlist and please check out the other authors!
ɴᴀᴠɪɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ
“Aren’t you a little too smart to follow me down this dark alley?”
You’re taken aback by the familiarity with which he addresses you. “And how would you know that?”
“Oh Y/N, you underestimate your popularity.” He takes a step forward, regarding you with a gaze that you, on anyone else, would describe as dozy, but on him? No. It makes him look sensual. Sultry. Powerful.
Your trained hand wraps around the holster on your belt.
“Who are you?” Your hand grips the leather tighter, waiting for a response. He doesn’t say much for a while, choosing to fill the silence by closing the gap between you two. You stand firm. It isn’t intimidation that puts you on the defence. It is this prickle of the unknown - the abyss of possibilities that surrounds your two bodies in this musty, twilit alley. You feel the walls close in on you, but shake off the unease, centering yourself to the prey at hand instead.
“I would have found that out before you followed me out here. What if I’m a bad, bad, very bad person?”
Two more steps into your personal space, and you can breathe the heady scent that he carries. You’re speechless. His aura is like nothing you’ve ever seen. With the crooked, deviant delinquents you’re used to, his ritzy tantalizing dance combined with the booze makes your ankles unsteady. Your disposition is less amusing to you than him, because he chuckles.
“I only wish to have,” cocking his head to the other side, he rasps out his demand, “a friendly conversation.”
Nothing about your position right now is friendly, your hand solid on your waistband, fingernail grating against the holster button. The air is dense and somehow heavy on your skin, making movement very strained. But he is fully at ease, like he sees no threat in your armed position. “Just lend me your ear 'til the end of this artwork investigation. I’ll help you catch me, if you may.”
“C-catch you?”
Body rushed into full alert, you pull out your gun, taking a few steps of safety away from him, “Stay right here. Don’t make a move,” and with your second hand, you pull out your phone to dial for back-up. The discoveries of the night sweat the alcohol out into the cold air, and your sober self attempts to act on your speedy instincts.
But the corner of your averted eyes catches his sudden pace, three long strides in to close part of the gap - and before you can retreat further, no more gap remains.
For his hand holds yours over the grip of your firearm, pulling you all in until the barrel digs into his chest.
“Wha- Get away!”
But he does not. Not an iota of vexation mars his pale, blue eyes. Not a whit of fear at your pulled gun. Not a single source of concern for his own wellbeing. The dip in his chest, where your menacing gun presses, educes a cold burn on your own skin, a haunt of your own weapon pressing into your chest.
“You won’t shoot me. Because you’re not like that, Y/N.”
He reads you well. The more you push your gun into his body, the more your own chest stings, the phantom feeling reversing the decisions your instinct produces. The guilt you’re trained to detect, it is absent.
“I can, and I will,” you shake your hand in his tight grasp, “if you don’t leave me this instant, I’m pulling the trigger.”
If fire could crackle out of pure hostility, the rancour in your soul would ignite this alley. Seconds tick by; you don’t know how many. But the stranger eventually gives in, albeit raising his hands in mock surrender, taking a few steps back.
“And what will happen,” nodding towards your hand that is frantically making a call, “when your ‘backup’ arrives? You think they’ll arrest me? For what?”
The last tap to give your phone, before Siwok gets your call. You’re almost there. You don’t have to be swayed by the taunts of this thief.
But is he wrong?
Looking up, his leisurely manner throws every signal in different directions. He’s right, but what can you do at this point? Lowering your gun, you discreetly rub a finger over your hand, where moments ago he held a tight grip.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll come and surrender.”
He actually laughs, but his regal visage has jeer written over it all.
“This is… so much more than one lost painting. Y/N, don’t tell me you too like those other pigs,” he spits out that affectionate moniker with such distaste, “drunk on closing cases rather than solving them?”
The intrigue is resistless. The fog of mystique surrounding his words draws you in without your express permission, and his final words have you shutting your phone.
“Give justice a chance.”
Maybe it isn’t those words that make you agree.
Maybe it’s his eyes when he says them. Less arresting, more imploring.
“I’m Kim Taehyung. Pleasure.”
Thank you for making it to the end, check out the collab here! Taglist for the fic is open!
