Thieves of Honor and Love Chapter 11: Psyche!, a sly cooper fanfic

So busy…so fried…now, where were we? Oh, here we go! Sorry for the long wait! Here's the next chappie!

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"C-Carmelita…" The raccoon almost didn't register his voice whispering his girlfriend's name, shocked that it was so hard to find it in the first place. His heart was trying desperately to tell Sly that it wasn't his Carmelita, that it must be someone else with the same name, but no matter how much he tried to tell himself, his eyes never left the photo ID that he hadn't until just now realized was thrown to his feet. It was her face, it was her. His eyes traced over her smiling, bloodstained headshot slowly, as if trying to find something that didn't match his Carmelita, something that stood out.

There was nothing.

It was her; the whole photo practically screamed her name; her deep brown eyes so full of dedication and persistence, her dark raven tresses he grew so accustomed to running his fingers through, her dark red lipstick that he knew had been her favorite shade for years, her Interpol choker necklace…

It was her.

He hung his head low in acceptance, in defeat. He couldn't deny what was in front of his eyes anymore. One of the guards had spotted Carmelita, and picked her off for no other reason than she wasn't supposed to be there, that she was a nobody. But they were wrong. She was a wonderful woman with many friends and was loved by a lot of people, including him. She was a strong-willed, intelligent, beautiful individual that was unafraid of life, ready to live it to its fullest. She was Carmelita…she was…

"Aah, so you know this lovely vixen? Or rather…you knew her?" Damian's smug voice broke Sly's train of thought, causing him to look up at the wolf, whom was currently twirling Carmelita's old Interpol shock pistol on his finger like some demented and mildly retarded cowboy.

That had pushed Sly too far.

It was one thing to dishonor his family's cane, but to insult Carmelita on top of that made something inside Sly just finally snap.

"Shut up…just shut the hell up, you fucking demented prick!" Sly roared, hardly acknowledging that the voice that had just erupted from his throat was his own. Damian looked at the snarling raccoon with an amused twinkle in his cold grey eyes. For the first time in his life since his father died, he felt helpless. Carmelita was dead, his friends were most likely being hunted down by Damian's men, and it was all his fault for being to reckless back in that mob fight, thinking he could take on so many guards on his own. Because of his stupidity, he was paying the ultimate price. He hung his head in defeat, closing his eyes lightly as his tears finally penetrated through his eyelashes and cascaded down his face. He was thankful that Damian couldn't see past the brim on his favorite blue cap; he wouldn't give Damian that satisfaction he so desperately craved for. He wouldn't show how broken he was inside, he refused to.

(…Meanwhile…)

"Oh my god! Where is it? Where the hell did I put it?" Carmelita was in an absolute frenzy as she started to dig around in her bag for what she had lost.

"What are you looking for?" Suzuna's sudden question broke Carmelita's train of thought as she turned in the direction of her voice. Suzuna was propped up against the side frame of the van, arms folded over her chest, an amused look on her features. Carmelita laughed nervously in response, scratching the back of her head as she felt a sweat drop find its way on her head (anime style). Now she just plain felt retarded that she was actually caught looking like a retard searching in her bag.

"Err…well…heh heh…I was just looking for my old ID and my shock pistol…but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I lost them back in that huge mob we were fighting in, the one Bentley told you about?" Suzuna nodded, but then sobered when a sudden thought struck her.

"Hey, is your shock pistol still operative? If it is…"

"Ah, don't worry about it; Interpol makes sure that when you quit, your electrical weapons are shut down permanently with your ID number, so those two things are pretty much useless to anyone, now." Suzuna nodded her head in relief before peeking past Murray's shoulder at the windshield in time to see "The Darkness" HQ begin to appear over the horizon. Her shoulder muscles tensed in anticipation of the upcoming heist/bad guy ass kicking melee/rescue mission that was just around the corner.

(...Meanwhile...)

That retarded raccoon actually fell for it.

That thought alone made Damian almost giddy inside. He had finally found one of Cooper's weaknesses, and was able to play off of it almost perfectly! It was so incredibly easy to plot the idea in his mind when he himself appeared after the mob fight in the treasure room and spotted the unconscious thief, battered and bruised, gasping for air. Shortly after they stored the raccoon in the cellar, one of his guards came to him days ago and presented the ID and deactivated shock pistol that, according to the guard, was found very near the Cooper Cane that Damian was after. It meant, in the wolf's mind, that there was a chance that the woman depicted in the photo and Sly Cooper were somehow connected; he knew that there was no one with that face under his employment, and finding it at the scene of the mob fight was no accident, that much was certain to Damian. To test his theory, he simply added a few droplets of fake blood to the woman's ID and handed it, along with the shock pistol to another guard, and asked him to bring it to the cellar when Damian was down there, and to mention finding it on a woman they had killed that was trying to break into the HQ. His plan couldn't have worked better, and he could only hope that the raccoon was that much closer to finally breaking down and revealing his hideout to the wolf himself. If not, there were other ways to find out...

Again, so sorry for the long wait (and my extended thanks to Heiduska for reviewing for the entire trilogy, you rock!) and I'll do my best to update ASAP. Until then, read and review, please!