loveday55

Ruby Redfort side blog

Hey bozo.

151 posts

Would Hitch Die For Ruby? Would Blacker Die For Ruby? Would Ruby Die For Hitch? Would Ruby Die For Blacker?

Would Hitch die for Ruby? Would Blacker die for Ruby? Would Ruby die for Hitch? Would Ruby die for Blacker? Would Hitch die for Blacker? Would Blacker die for Hitch? I NEED TO KNOW HOW MUCH THESE 3 LOVE EACH OTHER.

Excellent questions. I’m not sure if you want to hear the answers.

Would Blacker die for Ruby?

Lockdowns are never fun. Lockdowns that are actually serious, and not just an accidentally tripped alarm or yet another tedious unending drills are, of course, even worse. The lights are off, the door's locked, they're huddled behind a cabinet at the far end of the room, waiting for the all-clear to let them know that intruders have left the building. Blacker can see Ruby's hunched over form dimly in the darkness. She looks tense and furious. She wants to do something to stop this, but can't, and that scares her more than anything.

Footsteps, outside. The door rattles once, twice, and then shatters open. The splintering noise makes both of them flinch, and they exchange glances that say more than words ever could. Blacker stops breathing. The footsteps are inside, now, and they're heavy and purposeful. The person who's just broken down the door comes to a stop in the middle of the room, and there's a moment of silence.

"I know you're in here," says the guy. He sounds more amused than anything.

He looks at the reflection in the cabinet, and sees that the guy standing in the middle of the room, visible in distorted chrome, is wearing all black and is carrying a dangerous-looking gun. He looks back at Ruby, and realizes that this guy only knows that someone's in this room - he certainly can't have predicted that there's two of them, and if he gets up right now before the guy can notice Ruby -

Ruby seems to have come to the same conclusion, because she grabs his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "No," she says, barely moving her lips - the word just a slight exhale of air. "No."

"Stay down," he tells her, keeping his voice low.

"He'll kill you," she hisses, desperate and wild. "He'll kill you and you'll die and I can't deal with that, no, no, no -"

"I can hear you breathing," calls the man with the gun, and there's an ominous click, and there's a grin in his voice as he says, "don't make me come and find you!"

There's no time for all the things he wants to say. He prises her hand off his arm, ruffles her hair lightly, affectionately; and stands - and hopes to god that she won't end up being as traumatized by what comes next as he knows she will be.

Would Hitch die for Blacker?

"Got the handcuffs off yet?" Blacker asks, trying to twist around to see - they're bound back-to-back, of course - but ultimately failing.

"Getting there," says Hitch, grunting. Another few seconds pass - clink, clink, insert swearing here - and then he says, "again, sorry for getting you into this mess."

"No prob, kinda comes with the job description. Now, if we don't get back to HQ before lunch, well - then I might get mad."

He feels rather than hears Hitch laugh, and then then the clicking and rustling and swearing starts up again. Within five minutes, Hitch's handcuffs are off, and he's working on Blacker's.

"Any idea who these guys are?" Blacker wonders, watching the other man work.

Hitch offers a half-slope of his shoulders in response, a quick shrug. "None. Hang on -" and click, the handcuffs are off.

Blacker stretches his arms briefly, shakes his wrists out. "Okay," he says. "Let's get out of here."

"If anybody shows up," Hitch says, seriously, "just run. I'll hold them off as best as I can, but - you know, just look for an exit, try to get out, get help. We don't know what they're capable of."

Blacker pauses, thinks for a second about stating the obvious - but that's basically suicide, no matter how well you can handle yourself - and then realizes how pointless it is.

"Got it," he says instead, nodding, and they head out of the room without a word.

Would Ruby die for Hitch?

Sometimes time is measured in hours, and sometimes it is measured in days, and sometimes it's measured in split-second freezeframes, captured one after another in a frantic rush that can only be processed properly when the action has ceased.

Click. Rooftop fight. Fantastic. On the bright side: three goons already taken out between them (Ruby got lucky with a kick below the waist and a punch to the head, and the other two were a team effort) and there's only one left. One the not-so-bright side: Hitch is weaponless, the guy's got a gun, and she's got maybe five ten twelve seconds before Hitch beefs it because this guy does NOT look like he's up for conversation.

Click. She scans the rooftop. No options but to take the gun-wielding man down herself. There's only one way to a girl Ruby's size to stop a guy that size and oh boy she doesn't like it but Hitch Hitch Hitch.

Click. She might survive this. She might. She's survived worse before. Maybe.

Click. Rugby tackles are undignified but sometimes you gotta work with what you have. The man never saw it coming. Who expects to be tackled at point-blank range by an terrified angry teenager, especially so close to the roof edge? It's a stupid thing to do.

Click. Ruby is the undisputed queen of stupid decisions.

Click. Distant shout, 'kid NO' from the rooftop above, she's already falling. So's the other guy, so task accomplished, Hitch'll be fine at least.

Click. Maybe she'll catch onto a windowframe before she hits the ground. That'd be nice, she thinks, and convenient too. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Click.

Would Blacker die for Hitch?

"Which of you is the man known as Art Hitchen Zachary?" the woman in dark blue asks, and there's an unpleasant glint in her eye which Blacker really doesn't like, so that's what makes him stand up in response before he's even aware he's doing it.

"I am," he says, "it's me."

Blacker never really pictured himself as a heroic kind of guy, but he always liked to think of himself as a fundamentally good one.

Hitch, next to him, makes a little choked horrified noise that Blacker could literally not have got out of him in any other circumstances, and says, "wait -" but Blacker just shakes his head, pre-empting that.

"He's just trying to save me," he says, inwardly admiring how steady he's got his voice to sound. "Guys, it's fine. Ignore him. I'm Hitch. What do you want?"

"Uh-huh," says the woman in blue, eyeing him. "I take it you know exactly what you've done to make our organization... displeased with you."

"Yes," Blacker says, forcing himself to channel Hitch, to stay calm. No. I have no idea what you're talking about. But that's fine. He's disposable - Spectrum can easily find another coding expert, or Ruby or Miles can take over (they're both good enough, or working together they could accomplish anything if they just stopped arguing) - but Hitch is not. LB needs him, Ruby needs him - Spectrum needs him.

"I see," says the woman, and her face curls up into a horrible little grin, promising all manner of dreadful, nasty things. "In that case - Mr Zachary, do feel free to come with me. We have a lot to talk about."

Would Ruby die for Blacker?

It takes her less than a second to realize what's wrong with the scene she can see through the window set into the door in the coding room they've been using - only milliseconds to figure out that there's something majorly wrong with the way that the pens on the table are set out. Too neat, too perfect - too conveniently covering one blind spot. It takes her less than a second to work this out, but it inevitably will take longer than that to communicate all this, because words are unwieldly and not as razor-sharp and well-polished as her thoughts and deductions are. Blacker could have probably worked it out himself, but she moves faster with leaps of logic like this and he's distracted and there's just no time.

Blacker is talking about some new advance in technology, something inconsequential and light, and he's grinning at her over the steam that's curling up over his coffee cup, and he's yet to notice the way her expression's changed to completely serious, so that means he doesn't have time to stop her when she elbows him out of the way just as he's opening the door, and forces herself into the room first.

“Ruby, what -"

For a moment she thinks she must've overreacted - and that would be embarrassing but fine because it means that Blacker would be all right and so would she - but as it turns out, she was right, because it's about that point that the hidden mechanism goes off and the dart or whatever it is shoots right into her neck, and she has about enough time to swear in some very age-inappropriate terms before she's down on the ground and the coffee mug's been dropped and shattered and Blacker's yelling out the door for help and pulling her upright to (for the first time that she can actually remember him doing) scold her about her terrible, dreadful life choices (which, fair, but.).

"Next time," he tells her fiercely, "just let me take the damn dart. I'm not worth this, Ruby, I'm really not."

She grins at him kind of, sideways, and says, "thought there was something wrong with the room. Got it right again."

He sighs, lets out of a desperate half-laugh, and says, "yeah, and it sucks. Hold on, Rube. Help's on the way. I'll shut up and let Doctor Harper chew you out for this, huh?"

"Yeah," she breathes. "Yeah." She reaches up, fumbles for his hand, and squeezes it hard. He squeezes back, just as hard, and she thinks about telling him what a cool person he is and how glad she is that he's her friend, but it's kind of hard to talk and she's feeling super cold so she just holds his hand for a while and waits waits waits.

Would Hitch die for Ruby?

He's taken bullets for older people, and certainly less trustworthy people - and definitely people that he's liked a lot less. He's taken a lot of bullets, really. What's one more? You never really get to the point where you enjoy taking a bullet for someone, but this time, he thinks he might have gotten pretty damn close. Better him than the kid, after all. Better him than the kid.

It's not complicated, of course, but it doesn't need to be.

Love is a powerful motivator, of course.

It always is.