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stevebabey · 1 year

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hiii ruby !!! congrats on ur milestone i think ur so cool and funny and ofc so so deserving :D for ❤️‍🔥 can i request forehead against forehead from prompt list 5 bc i am a sucker for it <33 thank u ily !

ahhh!!! anna you are so lovely <3 thank u sm for picking this one it opened pandoras BOX in my brain and i think this is by far my absolute favourite i've written this whole damn celebration & its bcos its, of course, friends to lovers <3 - 1.7k+

The wish is far-fetched.

You knew that from the beginning and yet, like wishes were stackable, like wishing for something over and over would improve its odds of happening, you couldn’t help yourself. Every eyelash, every time the hands of the clock line up at 11.11, you wish desperately.

Eyes scrunched closed, you wish for Steve.

You have him, of course, just not quite as you want him.

It feels selfish, the hungry feeling that rises in your chest when you look at him too long, eyes drinking in every detail you adore. Long lashes, hazel eyes, lips so pink it wasn’t fair. You want him all to yourself. These are not the usual thoughts of a best friend.

Sometimes, the yearning seems to carve out every part of you til you feel hollow inside; because you’d offer it all out to him, every piece of yourself between your cupped hands, his if he only wanted it.

You want him to want it. To want you. Badly.

So, you wish. At this point, it feels more like a habit than anything — the clock hits eleven minutes past 11 and you send a little prayer out to the universe to give you this one thing. You don’t notice how Steve notices.

He can’t quite connect the dots in the beginning, can’t see the pattern that strings together all the things he’s noticed. How from time to time, you’ll close your eyes and squint just a bit— but then, quick as it happens, it’s gone. You’ll open your eyes, look over back at him, and continue on as if nothing has occurred.

Steve doesn’t pry, even though he really wants to — the first time you notice him watching you, he raises his brows, a silent what was that? with a hope you’ll clue him in. He wants in on all your secrets. But in an instant, he can see the embarrassment creep across your features, so he drops it, waving his hand, and resumes talking, eyes back on the road ahead of him.

After a month of subtlety catching the habit of yours that he's come to cherish, the sweet scrunch of your eyes and gentle clench of your fists at your side, Steve notices the clock.

You check the clock, most of the time, before your eyes flutter closed. It happens late in the morning and close to midnight. But then again also at random intervals, at times he’s not expecting. The frustrating pattern evades him even though he’s noticing. Noticing is, infuriatingly, not enough.

It takes another month for Steve to realise you’re wishing.

He’s enamored with the habit now — especially, now he knows you’re sending little hopes, blowing on eyelashes with the fervor of a little kid. The craving to know your secrets, to be trusted with your wishes, has grown ten-fold since he first noticed. Steve notices just about everything about you now.

It’s hard not to. What started as trying to comprehend your peculiar pattern, has become... something entirely different. Steve feels helpless to do anything but admire you now. His feelings for you have become startlingly fond, borderline sappy.

The sound of your laughter and how it threads gold into his days marvels him. The colour of your eyes in the morning light. How you curl up in his passenger seat like it’s the comfiest place you’ve ever known, like you could sit there all day with him. If he asked.

He’s pretty sure his heart strayed from best friend territory the moment he figured out the wishes. Maybe, he’s fooling himself and it’s always been this way.

It’s on his mind, even as the two of you sit at the back of the Hawk theatre, some garbage Sci-Fi film flickering on the screen. Normally, the back of the cinema was unofficially reserved for couples that wanted to make-out — Steve had pulled that move on a dozen dates. Picked a cheesy romance and the cozy darkness of the back of the theatre.

This is not the same, he knows. It’s not a cheesy romance film, you’re not quite at the back, and most importantly, this is not a date.

Steve really wishes it was.

“Hey,” Your whisper shakes him from his thoughts. Steve’s gaze moves from boring into the back of the chair in front of him to your concerned face. “Y’okay?”

You’ve turned towards him, shoulders hunched over like you might disturb other people in the cinema if you’re too big. It’s silly, there’s barely anyone else in here but you and Steve. A couple people a few rows forward.

Steve nods, throat dry. You don’t look convinced, eyes narrowing for a moment as if you’ll say something when your expression shifts. You focus on something below his eye.

“What?” Steve whispers, too aware of your fixed stare. His nerves creep up, feeling a bit flushed beneath your attention. Your hand comes up, reaching out to graze across his cheek and Steve forces himself to stay still. To not melt into the touch.

“S’just an eyelash.” You whisper, still focused. Thumb moving gently as you can, you sweep the eyelash beneath his eye off his cheek. It moves an inch but remains stubbornly on his skin. You huff silently, turn his way a little more, and lean in closer to try pinch it. It takes a moment as you try your best not to pinch Steve at the same time.

When you finally snag it between your fingertips, victory comes in the form of your pleased smile. It takes another moment to realise just how close you’ve gotten to Steve. Leaned over, his breath fans over your face and you can see the film reflected in his eyes, action sequences playing far, far away.

Faintly, you think that if you had your wish already, you could lean in a few inches further and steal a kiss. You think of the eyelash in your fingertips.

The thought knocks sense back into you, blinking hard, but just as you go to pull back Steve’s eyes flash down to your lips. He licks his own, then swallows, looks back up at you. A wretched thread of hopes keeps you from pulling back just yet — desperately praying you’re not reading into nothing.

Steve doesn’t pull back. His heart has hiked so far up his throat he’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all.

“What are you wishing for?” He croaks, too quiet. You hear it anyways.

Surprise shows on your face, lips parting and eyes widening just a moment. Steve wants you to give back the eyelash just so he can make his very own wish right now.

“How did you... know?” The last word is meek, only audible because Steve is so close. He wants to be closer. He moves an inch, recalling every single time he’s gotten the signals right in the past to keep him from losing his nerve. Tries not to think about what he might lose should he be wrong this time.

“You,” He huffs a little laugh, searching your eyes, trying to see if it’s the same hope he feels inside that he’s seeing in your eyes. “You close your eyes and wish on every 11.11. And— and eyelashes and dandelions too. You do this little squint, like you’re thinking real hard about what you want.”

Unable to help himself, Steve steals another glance at your lips as your tongue darts out to lick them nervously. His chest rises and falls a bit fast, nerves urging his pulse to run faster, faster. God, he’s nervous. Steve can’t remember ever being so nervous at the mere chance of just a kiss.

“So, what're you wishing for?” He asks again, in a whisper just for you two.

The film illuminates the side of your face, shadows dancing across the lines of your cheek. You’re beautiful, Steve thinks, achingly so. The silence twists his heart painfully. He doesn’t know you’re merely gathering your hopes to spit out the honest answer.

“You.”

You whisper the word quickly, knowing if you have a moment to think about it you’ll tuck it and all your selfish desires back away into your heart. But you ache for this moment — hunger devouring your insides with how much you want to kiss the boy before you. Enough that you’ll risk it.

It’s worth the risk.

The single word sets Steve off and he closes the distance between you in an instant, lips against yours. It’s gentle as he can manage while his heart works overtime pumping molten-hot affection into every part of his body. He feels giddy. He nearly forgets to memorise the curve of your lips, the warmth of this against his own, it feels so deliriously good to be kissing you. He thinks he’s been missing this his whole life.

You look a little dazed when Steve pulls back, lips with a sheen that catches the flashes of the cinema screen. You don’t speak, just blink and sink your teeth into your bottom lip, mind miles away. Your lack of a smile worries Steve; he feels like he could burst with how he wants to beam if this is what you want too.

He gathers his courage and presses forward again, til his forehead against yours. Tells you what he knows to be true, what you’ve been dying to hear. “You have me.”

Your eyes snap up to meet his and you give Steve a flood of relief, lips pulling into a smile. A small laugh of disbelief titters out of you, your smile transforming into a grin that betrays your utter happiness. This close, you let the want take over you and lean in to steal another kiss off his lips. He gives it to you sweetly and oh-so-willingly.

You stay this close, nose nuzzling against his, both your heads bowed to meet each other in the middle.

“I’ve been wishing on you for months,” You admit bashfully, your whisper wobbling in your embarrassment. You’re worried the enormity of your want for him will scare him off. Steve’s grin somehow gets wider, eyes somehow fonder. His voice comes out a bit scratchy, all sticky with affection.

“I think you’ve had me the whole time.”

It’s the honest truth. You’re not even mad about lost time because when he kisses you again like that, there’s no doubt that now? He’s all yours.

#DELICIO #two mutual pining besties sitting in the back of the theatreeeeee #k i s s i n g #this. i want this. i need this to happen to me #somebody SMOOCH me in ze theatre STAT #ruby writes steve #ruby's very own tour of hawkins #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve x reader #steve harrington blurb #stevie blurb!#honestly might tag this as a fic lmao #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x you #wahooooo

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voids-colourful-creations · 10 months

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In the Event You Find Someone Else Staring Back in the Mirror - An Akane Kurashiki Fic

[Read on Ao3!]

Rated: G Zero Escape: 999 (Only takes into account 999, so nothing beyond it) Minor Junpei/Akane Content Warnings: References to Canon Typical 999 Violence and Brain Fuckery Words: 1.3k

Summary: Imagine, if you will, you are Akane Kurashiki. You were meant to die a while ago, but you've persisted despite it. And despite this, you are not "safe" yet. You aren't really real yet, and you won't be, until you replicate your nightmares. But what else is there to do? You'll do anything, no matter how horrible, anything but die.

----

Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are 11 years old. You have eyes that look sort of blueish in the sunshine, and greyish in the dark. Eyes, like the sky in the sunshine, like kittens fur in the dark, and a toothy grin that stretches across your face. You fall asleep in class sometimes, staying up late playing with your best friend. Spending your days idly, you watch the amber-red sunset over your town with a smile. Walking home, you feel the weeds in the sidewalk brush against your ankles, and clutch a ragged doll tucked away in your pocket.

~ ~ ~

Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are 12 years old. You have grey eyes like steel. Hard and cold and on the verge of rusting away. You don’t sleep much anymore, and your eyes go bloodshot because of it. The greys are tinged red. You find you don’t like the colour red anymore. You don’t smile much anymore either.

~ ~ ~

Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are 16 years old. You have blue eyes, like the sky behind a flock of storm clouds. Your brother resembles a cloud, his hair a shock of vivid white. But he’s much more cloud-like than you are. Even when he’s a trouble maker and a nuisance, he’s still your brother and you love him very much. Your stomach swirls with guilt at the idea of dragging him into this. And yet you know you can’t do this alone. So you tell him. You tell him everything.

~ ~ ~

Your name is Akane Kurashiki (she whispers to herself in the mirror, gripping the edge of the sink and trying to calm her breathing.) You are 19 years old (and that’s so much older than she should be and it’s still much too young to die). You have grey eyes. Grey like a tombstone, Grey like mycelium, like decay. You are rotting and dying. You are shaking and sobbing in the bathroom in the middle of the night. You need to calm down. You need to calm down. You need to calm down.

It doesn’t work no matter how much you repeat it to yourself. Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are 19 years, 5 months, and 13 days old. You have blue eyes, and brown hair, and fingernails that dig deeper and deeper into your skin. You’d like to think the pain would convince you that you’re real, but it doesn’t. Nothing does. Every second the clock ticks forward you feel yourself unravel a bit more. Your face burns hot and your brain feels like it’s melting. You splash some cold water on your face and curl up on the bathroom floor until morning. Everything looks grey.

~ ~ ~

Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are a paradox folding in on yourself. The deeds you are preparing to commit are violent and horrific. You are unforgivable. You are a mistake. You are terrified of what you’re about to do and more than that you’re terrified to die. So you do it anyway.

When you were younger you had some deluded sense of justice. Maybe you still do. You thought that you were a good person, see, you thought that if you just kept a smile on your face and a hope in your heart, you’d never hurt anyone.

It is impossible for you to live without harming anyone. It is impossible for you to survive without ending the lives of others.

A part of you, small and angry, shaking and wild, spits out that they deserve it. They deserve to suffer, they deserve to be afraid. They deserve to die.

After all, they killed you first.

But another part of you feels herself breaking and breaking at even those thoughts.

Because how selfish of you, Akane Kurashiki, to believe that your life is worth that of 3 others. You cannot call yourself a good person when this is what you are going to do. It is not 3 monsters for one innocent soul.

You will never be innocent again. You never were.

Your past and your present selves are living parallel, and your future holds you both.

In some ways, it gets easier with time to excuse your actions. It’s an inevitability, it’s fate. Before you knew anything, you had already done it. When you stared out into a future through someone else's eyes, you watched your own misdeeds play out, knowing you were watching. Knowing this was the only way to save yourself. And again and again, that same thought repeats and repeats into a spiral of Akane’s watching Akane’s do the same things over and over again.

You are 20 years old. You haven’t done anything. Yet you already have.

It doesn’t have to make sense, you tell yourself, because it’ll happen whether you understand the specifics or not.

Your eyes are blue, or at least they are in your memories. You haven’t been able to face a mirror in a while.

The planning of such a feat is becoming more and more dire and real every day that flicks forward. You can’t ignore what needs to be done. It’s funny how fate feels nothing of the sort when you live it. In concept, it was so much easier to blame any sins on the nebulous concept of eventually and inevitability. Whether you wanted to or to, you would do these things. In some way, it was like you had no control, and that was a relief.

But today you entered the building for the first time, and the door was solid beneath your hands. You can smell the damp stench of a room unused, you can feel the layer of dusty grime that coats the door handles, you can hear your own footsteps.

Everything is crystal clear. Nothing is dreamlike. You look down at the gas mask in your hands and fully accept, for the first time, that everything you have done was your own action. Everything you are about to do, you will do while fully aware of its effects on people, down to every minute detail. You are doing this. This is all your fault. You know this in full. You will do it anyway.

You refuse to lie down and die.

You step outside, and promptly throw up into the hot desert sand.

~ ~ ~

Your name is Akane Kurashiki. You are 21 years old. Exactly 9 years ago you stood in the same spot you are now, trembling and afraid. You have grey eyes, like slate, like steel. The boy in front of you freezes when he sees you, and your heart rushes at the thought. It’s all still terrifying, and you like to think you can see it. When you look at him like this, that tiny version of yourself that’s caught behind his eyes.

But he is still there too, that boy you loved. He loved you too, back then, and in your memory of his mind. You like to think it still holds true.

Though when he knows everything, and he will soon, will destiny repeat itself again? Will the loop close?

Is there a possibility that everything you’ve done was for naught? You have to believe that’s not true. The paradoxical existence you’ve wavered in for nearly half your life now will come to an ending in some way or another, just 9 hours from now.

Will he still love you, a paradoxical monster who deserved to die long ago?

You don’t know.

You are Akane Kurashiki. You are June. You are Zero.

And for just a small sliver of time, in a nightmare you created, you let yourself be that little girl someone loved again. You tumble down the stairs and land on top of him. Shyly, you give a gentle smile.

~ ~ ~

In that moment, to him, she is still Kanny.

[End]

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