[001/ILC] Between These Bars
Title: Between These Bars
IL/Pairing Assigner: kendayawind & shadowcrawler12
Rating: PG
Genre: AU/Comedy
Length: One-Shot
Pairing: Heebum/Kichul
Challenge: Initial Line Challenge
Disclaimer: I have no authority or possession over any of the artists used in this fiction. Their names are merely borrowed and, in no way, represents them in real life. The plot belongs to me.
Summary: He doesn't dare to look at the beauty, too afraid to appear the beast, but with the beauty's mentality, whose to say they can't switch roles?
He's everything he's ever wanted, but every time he dares to look at him, he realizes just how out of reach he truly was.
It was unnoticeable, but with every glance that Heechul took in Kibum's direction, the latter would quiver slightly even if the gaze wasn't directed towards him. The word 'nervous' could barely even begin to describe the way Kibum felt around the older man and, with every nerve in his tensed body, he forced himself to at least appear composed in front of Heechul.
They weren't in the best of conditions, after all.
“I've thought it over,” Heechul declared, more to himself than the others around him, “I can't just continue on like this.”
Kibum blinked, feeling a cold sweat running down the side of his cheek. “Are you talking to me?”
Heechul sneered. “No. I'm talking to Thing One and Thing Two over here.” Kibum continued to stare at Heechul with blank eyes, not exactly processing Heechul's logic. Heechul rolled his eyes dramatically. “Of course I'm talking to you!”
“O-oh,” Kibum stuttered, brushing his fumbling fingers through his hair. “What were you saying?”
“I was saying,” Heechul grunted, standing from the stack of straw on the ground he was sitting in, “I have to leave this place. This cell is absolutely disgusting; mice running left and right, the food is outrageous, and they don't even have a proper bathroom for me to wash and clean!”
Kibum bit his bottom lip. “This is a prison cell, you can't really exp-”
“Yes, I can,” Heechul narrowed his eyes, “And I do.”
It was at moments like these that Kibum wished he lived somewhere in Heechul's mind. Not that living outside of it wasn't bad enough, but if he were in it, at least he'd have a better understanding of what Heechul was trying to make a point of.
“Hello,” Heechul knocked on the metal bars separating them, “Earth to Kibum, are you there?”
Kibum snapped out of his trance. It was hard to stay focused when he payed too much attention to Heechul's face and tried, and by tried he meant attempted in failure, to make sense of Heechul's words. “Y-yeah,” Kibum's tongue twisted again, “How are you planning on leaving?”
“That's for me to know and you to find out,” Heechul smirked.
That smile, that beautifully twisted smile, captivated Kibum once again. This conversation had been replaying for the past few years and, despite Heechul's repeated failures in escaping, he had never lost faith. Perhaps that was what made Heechul shine even brighter to Kibum in this hell of a prison.
Either that, or Kibum really had been locked up in this place for so long he'd forgotten how beautiful women could be. Although, he was certain, Heechul could make any female pale in comparison simply by standing beside them.
If only those metal bars weren't there, then he could...
“I know what you're thinking.”
Kibum was forced out of his state of mind once again by Heechul's explicative tone. His cheeks immediately started to reheat and he could feel the blood that was, at one point, rushing south start flooding back north. “W-what?”
Heechul wrapped his fingers around the steel bar, squeezing it tightly in his hand, as his signature smirk played on his luscious lips again. “If we ever get out of here, I'll think about it.”
Looking at Heechul now, compared to all the times before, became even more difficult than ever. The more he had his eyes on the older man, the more mesmerized he was by him. The more he looked, the more impossible he knew it was to ever reach him. He didn't dare to look anymore, so, Kibum buried himself deep into the straw, doing whatever it took to hide the redness of his cheeks.
“As cute as ever,” Heechul teased one last time before retreating to his comfortable spot in the corner of his cell. “Don't worry, I'll get us out of here. I definitely will.”
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A/N: Check out kendayawind 's challenge of the same couple here