Ruby Redfort Fanfiction: Look Into His Eyes And Take Your Last Breath

One Shot Numero Un

So basically... I STILL DONT HAVE BLINK AND YOU DIE. So I'm just kind of twiddling my fingers until it arrives and accidentally reading Hatter's fanfic which has spoilers, so I've got NOTHING to do right now. And the number of chapters in this book is forty five, which isn't a round number and isn't meeting my goal of fifty, so my idea was to write a oneshot for a moment in each of the five books that I have read so far that could have gone differently and also takes my chapter tally up to fifty, so yah. I'm not writing the oneshots in order of the first book to the fifth, so I'm going to start with the second book.
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As the lights in Ruby's life winked out, at first slowly, then with alarming pace, Ruby's thoughts turned to Clancy. She wished she had the chance to tell him how much she loved him, and how long she had loved him, but the opportunity had never arisen and well... here she was. Ruby cursed her rotten luck as she sunk deeper and deeper into the ocean, feeling the crushing sensation in her lungs become more and more prominent. She was going to die, in the ocean, drowned and never to see the light of day again, without Clancy Crew or anyone else for that matter. Ruby's eyes looked towards the heavens (or thereabouts) and wished she had the chance to utter a few last words. And suddenly, something winked at her. In the darkness of the sea, something long and silver glinted in the depths of the ocean. And this shooting star was heading straight for her. Without her glasses (they were in the dinghy), it took a few moments for Ruby to make out what it was. The breathing buckle. A gift from the heavens. If Ruby could have grinned, she would have. Maybe God was looking out for her after all. Or, Ruby though as she pulled the buckle towards her and took great, shuddering breaths, Clancy Crew. From one big problem to the next. She was strangling in the grasp of a giant sea monster, who had just recently strangled the pleasant Mr. Darling to death, and Ruby was to be its second victim. Just like that ridiculous shark movie Jaws. Ruby tried briefly to struggle out of the creature's grasp, but her attempts were fruitless, the monster had a grip like iron (diamond, Ruby often thought, should have been the object in the simile here, it was made of pure carbon and therefore a heck of a lot more tough than iron). As Ruby kicked and wriggled, she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. It was a diver. Ruby could have laughed. He or she or it looked tiny compared to the great bulk of the sea creature it battled. But after a few more moments of observation, Ruby noticed that the diver was quite the equal match to this thing, and in the next second felt the grip on her loosen and she swam away, up into the light, towards the cave. Not fast enough. Ruby swallowed what felt like several kilograms of purple ink that was emitted by the creature's tentacles (Ruby could almost hear Clancy shouting arms from above) by the ton. But the next second, Ruby had broken through the water and lay gasping at Clancy's feet. He stared down at her in astonishment for a short moment.
"Anyone tell you that you're the coolest boy alive Clancy?" Asked Ruby. The boy in question reached down and helped her out of the water.
"Rube!" He exclaimed, "Are you..." He tapped his head, "all right up here, I mean..." Ruby raised her palms in defence,
"Hey, I'm just speaking the truth." That's when Clancy seemed to notice the purple ink that covered Ruby from head to toe.
"Uh oh." He said. Ruby raised her eyebrows, about to go off on a long lecture about how 'uh oh' could mean a lot of different things, but Clancy grabbed her round the wrist and started pulling her away from the pool,
"You see any apple barrels around here?" He asked Ruby,
"Ha ha, very funny Clance, didn't I mention how wonderful you are sometimes-"
"That's great Ruby." Said Clancy as he frantically scanned the room for something to hide in when the tide came in,
"-Like, super cool, ya know..." Ruby babbled, miming a karate kick. Clancy ignored her.
"You could be a Spectrum agent. Apart from when you hid when we found the ruby casket, na ah, that was pretty lame-" Ruby kept grovelling on, but a light bulb lit up in Clancy's head.
"Ruby casket! You're a genius Rube!" And he pulled her towards the casket on the shelf, Ruby saying something along the lines of,
"No, you are." Clancy hung the casket upside down and all the rubies tipped out. "My namesake!" Objected Ruby loudly, but Clancy just threw her the Fairbank necklace and climbed into the casket, pulling an annoyed Ruby in behind him. She had draped the Fairbank necklace around her neck. Clancy pulled the lid of the casket shut, leaving the two crouched in the small space in complete darkness. Clancy squeezed his eyes shut. Even he wasn't sure about making it out alive.
"It's very tight for space in here." Ruby pointed out.
"I'm glad we fit in it together at all." Clancy replied through gritted teeth.
"Thanks for rescuing me." Said Ruby sincerely, Clancy gave her a lopsided smile in the dark.
"I couldn't just leave you to die Ruby. I'd never forgive myself." Ruby nodded.
"I'd never had forgiven myself if I had died and left you alone. It's pretty hard not think dark thoughts when you're about to die, man." There was silence momentarily. "If I had died and hadn't told you...well..." Ruby blurted a couple of seconds later. Clancy frowned.
"Told me what?" Ruby bit her lip and shook her head. She wasn't going to answer, nuh uh.
"That I love you." She answered. Well damn. Clancy froze. He turned to face Ruby.
"You love me?" He asked tentatively.
"Always." Babbled Ruby, cursing inside her head as her mouth spouted a stream of secrets. She was afraid to look at Clancy. To her surprise, the whites of his teeth were visible in the gloom. And he closed the space between them. Suddenly, he was kissing her and she was kissing him back and even when water filled the cave and the small casket was sucked into a whirlpool, they didn't even think about it whatsoever. It was only when they found themselves bobbing calmly in the ocean did they realise that they were out, and safely at that.
Clancy poked his head out of the casket cautiously and scanned the horizon. There was nothing he could see from his angle... Then Ruby and Clancy felt a tug from behind the casket and Clancy opened the lid completely and turned to see Hitch, Fornetti and Kekoa with a long stick pulling them towards a boat. Clancy could just make out their dinghy bobbing behind the boat.
"Ahoy there!" Yelled Hitch with a grin. "Must have been a bumpy ride!"
"I wasn't really thinking about it." Replied Clancy truthfully.
"Yeah," agreed Ruby, her head popping out into fresh air, "we-" that was all she managed before Clancy clamped a hand over her mouth. Hitch looked at him questioningly.
"Sorry," apologised Clancy, "she ingested the truth serum from the giant sea monster thing." Fornetti laughed.
"Yes, she gets quite excited from time to time, and unleashes all her ink at once." Then he frowned at Clancy, "but you sir, did not ingest the serum, ho ragione?" Clancy nodded,
"Haven't had any." Francisco Fornetti frowned,
"Then why, mio amico, do you have serum around your mouth?" Fornetti looked genuinely puzzled, but Hitch's head snapped round to stare at Clancy, then his eyes lit up and he winked at him.
"It's not what you think!" Begged Clancy desperately,
"Oh I bet it's exactly what I think." Laughed Hitch. "Lucky for you I'm not Ruby's parents." Ruby groaned,
"Shut up, will you Hitch?" Fornetti laughed heartily,
"Ah, now I understand."

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FLUFF